


Pink Fluffy Unicorns

by griever11



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Neighbour AU, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24671491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/griever11/pseuds/griever11
Summary: Felicity's new apartment had been a steal. It's in a good neighborhood, has a great amount of space and the rent is so affordable she hardly believes it.So of course, there's a catch. Her neighbour. He's a huge fan of late night parties and really loud, distasteful music, which only means one thing: constant interruption of her precious beauty sleep.She immediately hates him on principle, but unfortunately for her, he's also really, really hot.
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Comments: 121
Kudos: 509





	1. Chapter 1

There’s music. Why is there _music?_

It’s two in the morning, according to the blurry digital display Felicity’s squinting at. There should _not_ be music. 

Loud, obnoxious, un-neighbourly music, thumping through - yes _through_ \- Felicity’s ceiling. She rolls onto her back, flings her blanket off her feet and growls under her breath. She should have seen this coming, really. That nagging feeling in the back of her head should never, ever be ignored and _this_ is why. 

Sure, the lease had seemed way too good to be true when she signed it. And sure, she knows that there’s probably a really good reason why the apartment had gone through five different tenants in the space of a year, but _look._

Deciding to move to Starling had been a huge step for her, accepting the employment offer with Queen Consolidated was an even bigger step, and she didn't want to add looking for a place to stay to her ever-growing list of things that stress her out.

The two bedroom, self-contained unit is on the second highest floor of a pretty fancy building located in the centre of the city. The building itself has a 24-hour doorman, round the clock security and best of all? An internet connection with unparalleled speed and latency. And all for the price of something that should have gotten her a single room in the Glades, without utilities connected. 

She’d put down the deposit immediately. 

A week later, she realises what the catch is. 

The penthouse - or rather, whoever lives in the penthouse directly above her apartment - is a class A _nuisance._ It doesn’t take her long after moving in to realise that the thumping noises she’d been hearing _isn’t_ a figment of her imagination, and instead, is from whatever the occupants of the penthouse are doing.

All the time. 

She really doesn’t want to think too hard about what the noises mean because - 

There’s also a stream of women who travel to and from the penthouse, at all times of the day, accidentally getting off on Felicity’s floor when they realise they don’t have access to the penthouse without a keycard. The incessant giggling and loud stumbling down the hallway serve as constant interruptions, which aren’t conducive at all for the amount of work she has to get done on a daily basis. 

And _tonight,_ to top it all off, her lovely, very considerate neighbour has decided to annoy her with loud, _very bad,_ music.

“Argh!!!” 

She grabs her pillow and smashes it over her face in an attempt to block out the music but all she achieves is nearly suffocating herself and after a second she flings the pillow off her face and glares at her ceiling. 

It would almost be okay if the music was halfway decent, but unfortunately for her, it’s some kind of techno-electronica mix, combining ear-splitting screeching with a rattling bass that’s sending bits of dust and plaster falling from the ceiling. 

No cheap rent is worth this torture. 

Untangling her blanket from her feet, Felicity feels around for her glasses before jamming it onto her face. Enough is _enough._ She climbs out of bed and storms into her living room. 

Rage boiling in her blood, she grabs her tablet and accesses the building’s security system. It’s a little concerning that she manages to crack it in under a minute, but for now, it’s a blessing. She disables the penthouse elevator lock, and without second-guessing herself, she proceeds to leave her apartment, striding with determined anger into the elevator. 

The noise increases as she takes it upstairs, antagonising her even more. 

When the doors slide open, she immediately regrets not taking her noise-cancelling headphones with her. 

The hallway the elevator opens to is empty, but the floor is littered with trash - empty solo cups, gummy bears, pizza boxes, and Felicity shudders. She’d forgone wearing her shoes for this little excursion (regrets!) and she very carefully picks her way through the mess. 

“Hey! Hello?” she yells, but then realises that her voice is no match for the blaring, ear-splitting music. “God frackin damnit, who the fuck lives he -” 

_“Unicorn!?”_

Felicity spins around at the sound of another person’s voice, cringing as her bare feet nearly skid on some kind of sticky substance on the ground. 

A boy - no, man, oh, _definitely_ a man, glassy eyed, with a dopey grin on his face, appears from under an archway that presumably leads to the rest of the penthouse. He’s shirtless (wow, are _those_ real?), and only wearing low-slung tracksuit pants. He’s barefoot as well, but unlike her, doesn't seem bothered that his feet are crunching against god-knows-what strewn about on the floor. 

“Did we order unicorns too?” he slurs as he stumbles his way towards her. His slack-jawed expression is vaguely familiar to her, but she can’t quite place him. They probably crossed paths before, but she hasn’t lived there long enough, and hasn’t had time to really get to know anyone yet.

“I thought Tommy only got mermaids.” More nonsense spills from the guy’s lips. “You’re not a mermaid.” 

“Do you live here?” Felicity scream-asks, trying to make herself heard over the noise. “Can you -”

“Do _you_ live here?” the man mocks annoyingly. He’s now close enough for her to realise he’s high or really drunk, and even though she’s feeling a slight blush creeping up her cheeks (look, he’s half-naked!) Felicity steels herself against the abs-related distraction and fixes him with her most venomous glare. 

“I need you to turn the music down!” 

“Why?” the man asks. “Unicorns like music!” 

What the hell is with him and unicorns? Baffled, Felicity tries again. “I don’t know any unicorns, but _I_ don’t -” 

_“You’re_ a unicorn,” he tells her, rolling his eyes like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Pretty unicorn,” he continues, waving his fingers at her. “Your head’s bent backwards, but-” He squints at her. “Your second head is pretty too.” 

Felicity gapes at him for a full second before she slowly follows the trajectory of his fingers and looks down her body. She mentally smacks herself. Oh. Right. 

She’d worn her unicorn onesie to bed. 

Embarrassment turns her blood to ice as she remembers how it had been laundry night, and how she’d dumped her entire load of clean washing on her couch because she couldn’t be bothered with it, and then decided she’d sleep in her very comfortable unicorn onesie instead. 

“You’re so fluffy, can I touch you?” 

“No!” Felicity yelps, jumping backwards and away from his questing hands. The hood of her stupid onesie, complete with unicorn horn, bounces against the back of her neck. God, how could she have forgotten she was wearing this horribly embarrassing outfit? It’s a good thing this guy is so drunk he’ll probably forget this entire conversation ever happened. 

“I live downstairs,” she yells in explanation. “And I can hear your music through my ceiling. You don’t have to turn your music off, but can you just turn it down?” 

“You don’t live downstairs. Bad-mood Ben lives downstairs.” 

Felicity growls, impatience fueling her anger. She thought graduating from MIT and moving to Starling meant not having to deal with drunk, useless frat boys anymore, but look at her now. Ankle deep in party trash, no worse than being at a basic college rager. 

_“No,”_ she forces through her teeth. I don’t know who Ben is but I’m Felicity and _I_ live downstairs now. And your music is obnoxious, and unpleasant and it’s two in the morning, so can you please -”

“You’re much prettier than Bad-mood Ben. And more polite. I like Felicity better.” 

_Jesus Christ._

It’s like talking to a brick wall. A frustrating, exasperating, (though kinda hot) brick wall.

“Put your head on.” 

Felicity sputters. “I’m sorry, _what!?”_

“Don’t be sorry!” the man grins at her, folding his arms over his chest, squeezing his very solid-looking, naked, pectorals, and completely missing the point. “What’re you sorry for? You’re so pretty!” 

Felicity screws her eyes shut. She presses her hands against her eyes, feeling an oncoming headache. This night _\- morning -_ is turning out to be the _worst._ She groans, “Oh my god. You are insufferable.” 

“Oh no!” he gasps. “I didn’t know you were suffering. Here, let me put your head on for you, pretty unicorn, then I’ll turn my music down,” the man says in a quiet, wholly unnecessary comforting tone, which in turn, makes her pop her eyes open.

Except it’s too late, and she comes face to face (face to chest?) with the man’s vast expanse of golden skin, looming over her as he reaches - he reaches! - over her and -

Pulls her hoodie up over her head. 

The soft, fluffy, material flops down over her forehead, obscuring the top half of her field of vision, and then the man steps back. The bottom of his very chiseled jaw comes into view and his lips curve up into a smile. 

“There, no more suffering. You have your head back on.”

Felicity can only blink at him. It’s not often she’s rendered speechless, much less by a man drunk out his mind - but this conversation, hell, this entire encounter, has been the weirdest fifteen minutes she’s had to endure in her entire life so she thinks being gobsmacked is warranted. 

Slowly, she tips her head backwards so she can take his whole face in. 

He looks so proud of himself, a watery, self-indulgent smile plastered across his face. His arms are folded neatly over his chest, and he’s scrutinising her like a fine piece of art. 

“Mmhm,” he murmurs. Felicity almost doesn’t hear him over the pounding music, but she can read his lips well enough. “Prettiest unicorn I’ve ever seen, for sure. I must tell Thea.”

“Uh.” She swallows. That’s a compliment, right? Unicorn or not, he thinks she’s pretty so... “Thank -”

Suddenly, he slaps his hands together and without another word, turns around promptly. Whoa, holy back muscles. 

“‘Kay!” he exclaims, raising a hand in the air. He gives her a quick backwards wave. “Turning down the music. Bye, unicorn!” 

And then he’s stumbling back through the archway, hands slamming against the side of the wall to steady himself as he nearly trips over his own feet. 

He disappears. 

The music, thankfully, actually stops soon after. 

Which leaves her ears ringing as she’s blanketed in silence, staring blindly down the now empty hallway, rooted to the floor, surrounded by trash, spilled alcohol and pizza. 

What the _fuck_ just happened?

* * *

There’s a tiny square of paper under Felicity’s door that goes unnoticed for a while after that encounter. It starts to yellow at the edges, gets scuffed from being kicked around, ignored and overlooked as she enters and exits her apartment over the next few days. 

It isn’t until she nearly slips on it one night, returning from a fifteen hour day at work, that she realises that it’s there. 

Bleary-eyed and with her stomach growling with hunger, she bends down to pick up the tiny post-it sized piece of paper. The writing is barely legible and she has to squint to make out the tiny words on it. 

_ hello im sorry _

Felicity frowns. ‘Hello, I’m sorry?’ One, where are the punctuations, and two,  _ what?  _

She flips the piece of paper around in case there’s more on the other side, but it’s blank. Could it have been a mistake, maybe? A note meant for someone else that had accidentally ended up under her door? She spares another thirty seconds staring at it before sighing and giving up. Whatever it’s supposed to be, it can’t be that important, so Felicity scrunches the paper up into a ball and tosses it into the trash can. 

It’s midnight. She doesn’t work tomorrow. 

It’s time for bed. 

Except, barely an hour later, just as she starts drifting off into the semi-trance like state of being asleep, yet not, her ceiling starts rumbling. 

Of course. She should have expected this; it  _ is _ a Friday night. 

The music starts as a muted, steady beat and for a brief second, Felicity (naively) thinks she can deal with it. She pulls one of extra pillows over her head, flattens it over her ear and snuggles back into bed. Until -

_ Pink fluffy unicorns, dancing on rainbows! _

It thunders - literally _ thunders  _ \- through her ceiling this time, the volume having exponentially increased so that she can hear.  _ Every. Single. Goddamned. Word.  _

“Agh!!!!”

Her pillow flies across the room. She’s out of her bed faster than a bullet. Her phone’s in her hand in the next instant and she takes off towards the penthouse. 

_ Pink fluffy unicorns, dancing on rainbows! Pink fluffy unicorns, dancing on rainbows! Pink fluffy unicorns, dancing on rainbows! _

Over and over it repeats, in a sickeningly sweet tune - like a TV jingle from the 90s, loud and jarring and wholly, one hundred percent  _ on purpose,  _ Felicity realises when she hacks her way into the penthouse elevator. Because why else would the asshole play a song about  _ pink fluffy unicorns _ if not to make fun of her very unfortunate fashion faux pas from the last time they met? 

The elevator dings and the doors slide open easily, much like it had the last time. Tonight however, the hallway isn’t littered with rubbish, and is instead in pristine condition. The floor is practically gleaming, and Felicity feels a childlike urge to slide over the length of it in her socks. 

An urge that dissipates the moment she sees  _ his  _ dumb, smirking face leering at her from around the corner. 

She’s hit with the same wave of familiarity that had washed over her last time they met, but she brushes it off in favour of more pressing matters. 

Like yelling at him over this god awful music, for example. 

“You!” she snarls. 

_ Pink fluffy unicorns- _

“Hey, neighbour!” He waves at her, yelling cheerily over the music, totally unbothered about the fact that she’s just broken into his penthouse, livid and about to strangle him. And even more frighteningly, nonplussed about the ear-splitting cacophony currently playing over his speakers. 

“What’s up?!”

And -  _ Jesus _ , does he not own like, a single shirt? 

_ -dancing on rainbows _

Felicity growls under her breath before raising her voice. “Can you pl-”

_ Pink fluffy unicorns, dancing on- _

“ËNOUGH!” Felicity bellows, so loud that she thinks the walls start shuddering. The man winces and his smug grin vanishes. 

His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat and a hand dips into his pocket and the music, _ finally, _ turns off. The relief settles over her bones like a warm blanket. Her ears stop ringing and she manages to take a few deep, calming breaths. Her glare though, doesn’t waver in it’s intensity.

“Okay, I’m sorry.” His voice comes out a little meek, and he sounds, as incredulous as the notion is, genuinely apologetic. 

“You’re sorry?” she repeats.

“Look, I only - shit, how do I,” he breaks off, then runs a hand through his hair (much better styled hair than the last time she saw him, she notes). His pectoral muscles twitch - and she hates herself for noticing that tiny fact. “I um, wanted to see you.” 

She blinks at him. Once. 

“I tried leaving you a note. You never responded. And then I came by, like, three times, but maybe you weren’t home? I don’t know. And then I left another note and said I was sorry, but still nothing... Um, last time, I played really loud music and you came up here, and I thought if I did the same thing-”

“You’re telling me that you wanted to apologise for being a dick, by being a dick again?” Felicity sputters in disbelief. The strange piece of paper with  _ ‘hello im sorry’ _ flashes in her mind’s eye. “Oh my _ God,  _ that note was yours.” 

“Huh?” 

_ “‘Hello, I’m sorry’?!”  _ Felicity barks. “Are you kidding me? That’s your idea of an apology?” 

“Okay, wait.” He holds both his hands up defensively. “I told you I came by in person, but it’s not my fault you’re never home! What do you even do anyway?  _ Normal  _ people come home for dinner, not just y’know, to go to bed in the middle of the night. No wonder you’re so grouchy all the time.”

Felicity bristles with indignation. Who is _ he  _ to make judgments on how she lives her life? So what if she works a lot? She’s happy to. She works at one of the most prestigious research and development firms in the country, Queen Consolidated, and - 

Her rambling thoughts come to a screeching halt as she’s hit with a sudden, spine-chilling revelation. 

“Wait, what are you doing with your face? What’d I say?” His mildly concerned voice sounds like it’s coming from far away, like she’s been dunked into a water tank, as she starts figuring it all out. 

Oh.

_ God.  _

There’s a reason why her annoying neighbour seems so familiar, she realises. A real, concrete reason other than  _ ‘maybe I’ve seen him around the building’. _

“You’re Oliver Queen,” she whispers. “Walter’s son. Step-son. Oh my -”

His head tilts sideways. “You didn’t know who I was?” 

Her eyes flick up to his, startled. She licks her lips. “No?” 

“Right. But you know who  _ Walter  _ is.”

It’s a little reassuring that he seems just as perplexed at the situation as she is. Both his hands are deep in his pockets, and his forehead is scrunched up like he’s working out a rather complex puzzle. 

“I know who you are, obviously. I just - didn’t recognise you,” Felicity clarifies. “At first. ‘Cause you were all... drunk. And to be fair, I only have tabloid pictures to go by, and half the time they’re blurry and out of focus and you’re stumbling out of club, or into a car, or with a bunch of women all around you -”

“Okay, _ fine.  _ I get it,” Oliver interrupts tersely - seriously? - he has the audacity to sound annoyed with  _ her?  _

“You don’t get to be frustrated with me, mister,” Felicity grumbles.  _ “I’m  _ annoyed with you now. All I want is some nice, uninterrupted sleep, and here you are, keeping me up all night with your shenanigans and it’s not cool, okay?”

A glimmer of a smile ghosts over his lips. “I have other ways of keeping you up all night if you prefer,” he leers at her. 

“Seriously, I mean it,” Felicity sighs. Now that she knows who he is, she tries to keep her rage to a low simmer. There’s no way she’s jeopardising her career in the off chance this... fool decides to make her life a living hell at work. 

“Like I said, this time it’s because I thought it was the only way I’d get to see you to apologise,” Oliver shrugs. “And I was right - it worked, cause here you are.” 

“You’re ridiculous, you know that, right?” 

“As ridiculous as your unicorn onesie?” 

Felicity’s cheeks get really hot. “I will pay you to forget you ever saw that.” 

“Nope.” 

Felicity scowls. She’d figured as much. Trust her to make such a great first impression on her boss’ son. She has a dozen insults to throw his way, from his own choice of attire (the lack thereof), to his half-assed apology, for being an inconsiderate neighbour, and a few pointed comments about his life decisions in general - but Felicity decides to take the high road. 

This time. 

“Can you at least promise not to blast stupid music in the middle of the night then? ‘Cause I really do need the sleep. I work _ really _ long hours.” 

Oliver taps his chin with his finger, as if he actually needs to consider her very reasonable request. “The only reason I was playing music - by the way, how amazing was the song I found, totally appropriate, right? Fluffy unicorns? - ” 

He takes her disgruntled glare in his stride and beams proudly at her before continuing, “- is because I wanted to apologise for being an asshole the other night, and I have. So, you can go get your precious sleep now. I won’t bother you anymore.”

She’ll blame it on her exhaustion, but as much as she doesn’t want to, she’s starting to find Oliver to be quite endearing. He looks earnestly at her, quite pleased with himself, and she shakes her head before letting out a snort of laughter, wholly unbidden. 

“Somehow, I don’t believe that,” she challenges. As if he’s going to magically stop having raucous, obnoxious parties just because she asked him to. He’s  _ Oliver Queen.  _

“Look, it’s been a rough couple of months and I’ve been letting loose. But not anymore. I’m making some changes in my life,” he explains. His eyes go wide and he blinks a couple of times at her like he’s caught himself unaware. “Not that you asked for an explanation, of course. But if it helps to make you less angry with me, that’s why.” 

Felicity suddenly remembers seeing a news article about a car accident involving someone from the Queen family. His sister, maybe? A twinge of sympathy travels through her. Family problems that make you act out irrationally? Yeah, she can relate. Kind of. 

So maybe he’s not that bad after all? 

“Won’t happen again, okay?” he reassures her. “I think I’ve got all of it out of my system now.” 

Felicity purses her lips skeptically. “Okay,” she eventually concedes, because she doesn’t know the man, and he doesn’t have the same issues that she does with her family, so it’s not her place to doubt him. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

He bestows a nice smile upon her, wide and toothy, and she feels her cheeks heat up. Again, wholly involuntarily, because her traitorous body clearly hasn’t gotten the message that as attractive as he is, she absolutely cannot  _ go there.  _

“Anyway, I’m gonna-” Felicity jerks her thumb at the elevator as she steps backwards. “- get back to bed.” 

Oliver nods. “You do that. It was nice meeting you, again. Officially,” he says with a little wave.

She enters the elevator, waving back at him as the doors slide shut. The rest of her trip back to her apartment is uneventful, and she immediately collapses back into her bed, with nothing but the familiar, comforting hum of her desktop surrounding her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver gets a taste of his own medicine.

No.

.

.

.

She shouldn’t. 

Felicity pulls her bottom lip between her teeth as she stares at her laptop screen. If it were any other night, she wouldn’t have even considered it. On any other night, she’d be level-headed and rational and _super_ responsible. 

But _tonight,_ she’s deep into her second bottle of wine after a stupidly bad day, lulled into a state of contentment by her pint of mint chip ice cream, which coincidentally, is the only thing she’s eaten since lunch time, so she’s feeling... 

Feisty. 

Very drunk, yes, but also. _Feisty._

Her finger hovers over her mousepad, wavering. Torn. The ‘Connect to Your Bluetooth Device’ window that’s open on her screen taunts her. Among the list of available devices she can connect her laptop to, one in particular stands out like a sore thumb: 

_‘Oliver’s New Speakers’_

Except for that one time he mysteriously appeared in a dream, one that had her still blushing when she woke up, sweaty, and very _frustrated,_ Felicity hasn’t actually spared any time thinking about her neighbour at all, so seeing his name pop up so suddenly on her laptop screen had been a surprise.

She hasn't heard a peep from her semi-celebrity neighbour since their confrontation almost a month ago, and now that she’s reminded of his existence, she realises that there’s also been a significant decrease in the number of random women turning up on her floor. So even if he had been supremely annoying at first, at least he’s someone who can keep his promises. 

That’s nice to know. 

But, back to tonight - while she’d been preoccupied with her busy day to day life, it appears Oliver has bought himself some new speakers with impressive long-range Bluetooth connectivity. Which actually makes it that _more_ impressive that she hasn’t had to go upstairs to yell at him again. 

In any case, it would be so easy to just connect to them right now and play... _whatever she wants._

It’s only fair after all. Right? He interrupted two nights of her sleep, and sure, he apologised but it was a weird as hell apology, and she’s _really_ buzzed and bored and it’s a Friday night so Oliver probably isn’t sleeping anyway. What’s the worst that could happen?

She screws her eyes shut and hits play. 

Her teeth gnaw on her bottom lip nervously, eyes darting up to her ceiling as she waits. Her fingers slide the volume control all the way up, just in case, and then - 

_I’m too sexy for my love, too sexy for my love, love’s going to leave_

Felicity bursts out in a fit of giggles, letting her laptop slide off her lap and onto her couch. The song plays on, infectious beat thumping, and her giggles morph into full blown laughter.

_I’m too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt so sexy it hurts_

Oliver made fun of her onesie, so she’s going to make fun of his constant shirtlessness. Fair’s fair. Even drunk, she can see the logic behind that. The laughter won’t stop rolling out of her, and tears start streaming down her cheeks. She turns the volume up even more, just for fun. 

Two more bars play, and then the music stops abruptly, but Felicity’s already on the move, picking her laptop back up and hitting play again. And then the song plays from the very beginning, reverberating through her ceiling.

“That’s what you get, Oliver Queen, for having an open connection to your devices. Rookie mistake,” she gasps in between breaths. “Walter would be _so_ disappointed.”

She puts the song on repeat, cackling, and takes another swig from her wine bottle. The alcohol’s heating her blood, making her feel all loose and _floaty,_ and before she knows it she’s on her feet, bottle dangling from her fingers, tapping her feet and swaying to the cheesy 90s tune. 

Until she hears three, very loud thuds against her front door. 

She stops dancing, looks down at her bottle, and then turns around to look at her door. Is she that drunk that she’s hallucinating sounds now? 

Nope. 

Someone knocks again and Felicity shakes herself out of her temporary haze of delight before scrambling to her door. She’s not sure how capable she is of handling company right now, but she can’t just leave whoever it is hanging, can she? 

She flings her now empty bottle into her recycling pile, pulls the hem of her hoodie down and then turns her doorknob, bracing herself. 

Felicity rears her head back when she sees who it is. His hair’s a mess, his shirt is rumpled and quite possibly inside out - he’s clearly very flustered. 

“I promise I’m not the one doing this.” 

“Oliver?” Felicity wrinkles her nose. Did she summon him here with the power of her mind? “Oliver. It’s you.” 

“Yeah, look, I promise, this _isn’t me._ This crap -” He flings his arms up and gestures wildly above his head. “I’m not playing it. I tried to stop it but... hey! Why - why are you laughing?” 

Felicity doubles over, wheezing, hands clutched to her chest. Her body keels over to the side, making contact with the door frame and she bursts out in giggles again, shaking uncontrollably. 

_So sexy it huuuurts_

Oliver raises his voice to counter the music, getting more agitated by the second. “Felicity, are you drunk?”

She nods, sniggering, barely containing her bubbling laughter. She looks up at him, her vision swimming a little. Whoa. She’s _sooo_ drunk. She pouts innocently at him. “Did the music wake you?” 

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Oliver growls, finally getting it, and his face goes hard, eyes blazing. “This is _you?!”_

“Thought it’d be funny!” Felicity says, chest heaving. She wipes the tears from the corners of her eyes. “Not so much fun being on the receiving end is it?” 

“Felicity, I have someone over!” 

“Lady someone?” Felicity drawls, then sticks her tongue out. “Bet they enjoyed the music.” 

Oh, she’s going to hate herself tomorrow, but for now, the combination of his angry scowl, the furrowed brow and his heated glare is charting a tantalising path all the way down her body and she’s going to enjoy every single minute of it. 

“How are you doing this?” Oliver doesn’t wait for an answer, brusquely pushing past her and storming into her apartment. Felicity presses her lips together in amusement, shuts her door and follows him. 

“Stop this right now! Where is your - how do you stop playing the song?!” he demands, spinning around on his feet, eyes darting back and forth like he’s expecting to find some kind of illegal, mad scientist-type of setup in her living room. 

Jokes on him, _that_ setup is in her bedroom.

“I don’t think you’re a mad scientist,” he forces out between clenched teeth. “I do think it’s hypocritical of you to barge into _my_ apartment asking me to stop playing loud music when you’re doing the exact same thing right now!”

_Too sexy for my cat, too sexy for my cat, poor pussy, poor pussy cat_

Felicity chokes on her own laughter at the line, and that’s when Oliver loses it. “Just stop the music!” he bellows. 

Taking pity on him and the pulsing vein in his temple, Felicity grabs her laptop and hits pause. A sullen _thanks_ escapes from between Oliver’s lips, though it doesn’t look like he means it. In fact, there’s a hint of sarcasm in his tone and nuh-uh. Not cool. 

“Technically, I’m not doing the ‘exact same thing’,” Felicity mutters obstinately. “The music’s coming from _your_ speakers. So you’re still the one playing the loud music. Not me.”

Oliver scoffs. “Wow. You’re... really something else.” 

She raises an eyebrow, ignores his pointed remark and repeats his words from their confrontation back to him. 

“But totally _appropriate_ song choice, right? Since you’re always shirtless. Except for now, which is a shame, but it’s so tight you might as well be. So it stands. Appropriate. Too sexy for a shirt. So sexy it hu-”

_“Felicity!”_

“You don’t have to be so loud, I already turned the song off,” Felicity grumbles, rolling her eyes. If he keeps up with all this yelling, she’s going to have a massive headache and she’s saving that for the hangover. Best to placate him for now. 

She steps up to him, pushes her glasses up her nose and purses her lips. “What happened to Mr. Flirty Flirt, _‘I have other ways of keeping you up all night’_? Where’d he go? It’s like the invasion of the body snatchers and you’ve been replaced with a grumpier, more modest version of you.” 

Oliver stares at her like she’s grown two heads. “More _modest..._ Holy shit. I’m in Freaky Friday,” he half-whispers, shaking his head. 

Felicity cocks her head. “Which one? Because personally, I prefer the Lindsay Lohan version, but you seem like an old soul. Not saying you’re old, old. Because you’re not. You look... very not old. But that’s not the point, I guess. The point is that our roles are reversed and you’re right! This time you’re the one visiting me asking me to shut up. Ha. Isn’t it funny?” 

“You talk a lot when you’re drunk.” 

“I talk a lot on a normal day,” Felicity counters. “You’d know if you were around more. Where do you go all the time, mister? I never see you. Not in the laundry room, or the mail room, or at work...” 

“I have my own - why would I see you at - you know what? Never mind.” Oliver grunts. He’s obviously still annoyed with her, if the rippling tension in his shoulders is anything to go by. He sweeps a hand over his face, exasperated. “Don’t hijack my speakers again.” 

“What if I played a better song?” She bats her eyes at him coquettishly. 

“Don’t you dare.” 

It seems the alcohol cruising in her blood is giving her God-like courage because poking a sleeping bear isn’t usually something she does but here she is, egging on an already irate Oliver. And she’s having fun with it to boot. 

Who _is_ she?

“For example...” She taps her chin with her knuckles, feigning thoughtfulness. “‘ _Pretty Fly for a White Guy?_ Gotta love a good, pop-punk beat. Also, appropriate. _”_

He points a menacing finger at her. “I swear you won’t get a decent night of sleep ever again if I hear that song coming out of my speakers.” 

What’s this? A challenge? Felicity Smoak loves a good challenge. She teeters on the tips of her toes before catching the finger that’s still pointed at her. She wraps her entire hand around it and tries to shove him away, but he’s as sturdy as a brick wall so he doesn’t budge and _oh -_ that... that looks really _suggestive._

“Um...” Her eyes won’t leave the image of his thick, long finger surrounded by littler ones and she gulps. Her voice cracks. “Then you - _you_ won’t get anymore sleep either!” 

“Yeah, we’ll see about that.” 

He yanks his finger out of her hand, bearing down on her like he’s trying to look threatening. For a moment, they’re so close that she can discern the different shades of blue in his eyes, shimmering with frustration and a glint of _something else._

She’s too intoxicated to spend much time on his eyes though, so she lets him storm past her in a whirlwind of anger and male pride. She catches a whiff of cologne as he marches towards her door and he smells nice. _Real_ nice. 

Maybe she really did interrupt date night. Whoops. 

“Enjoy the rest of your night, Felicity,” Oliver warns as he pulls her front door open.”Because from tomorrow, sleep is going to be nothing but a distant memory for you.” 

Her head feels heavy and her brain feels like it’s shrouded in a thick cloud so nothing he says even makes sense anymore. He told her to enjoy the rest of her night, right? 

“‘Kay,” she says before waving cheerfully at him. “Goodnight to you too!” 

Oliver shakes his head at her like he’s looking at a lost cause then turns around to cross the threshold and into the hallway outside. Felicity’s about to head back to her couch when she hears his heavy footsteps approaching again and she turns back to find her door still open, with a glowering Oliver standing in it. 

“Felicity. _Jesus.”_

“What now?” she rolls her eyes at him. 

“Please lock your door after I leave.” 

“Oh. Right.” That would be smart. Felicity nods at him, reaching for the metal chain attached to her door. “I’ll do that, yes. Okay, bye!” 

Her door closes with a satisfying snick in Oliver’s face and she latches her door shut. Just as she starts stumbling back into her apartment, she swears she hears a faint, _“And can you drink some water before going to bed?!”_

* * *

“Put this on.”

Thea Queen glares at her older brother, ignoring the monstrosity of a thing he’s waving in front of her face. She twists her lips in disgust. “Ew, why?” 

“Because it’s about to get really loud in here.” 

Oliver drops it - oh, it’s a pair of really, really large headphones - onto her lap and disappears into the kitchen without another word. Thea puts her phone away and picks the ghastly headphones up. 

“Fancy,” she murmurs, as her fingers go over the fine etching of the brand name over the top. “Ollie, seriously, why am I putting these on?” she calls out. She fiddles with the buttons on the side, examining the padded earcups. 

“Because they’re noise cancellation headphones,” is his answer, which, frustratingly enough, doesn’t actually answer anything. 

Climbing off his very comfortable couch proves to be difficult, especially when she’s been lying on it all night - and morning. She tosses the headphones back onto the couch and goes in search of her weird brother. 

Actually, weird is an understatement when it comes to describing how he’s been acting lately. Sure, Thea knows it’s probably her accident that triggered the sudden shift in his behaviour, but she didn’t think it’d make him change _this_ much. 

Not that she’s complaining, of course. Oliver 2.0 as she secretly calls him in her head, is so grown up, so different from the boy who spent almost all of his waking hours either drunk or high, or most of the time, both. 

It’s as if seeing her all banged up in the hospital had set him off - triggered something - in him, and suddenly her big brother is taking classes at the Starling City community college, seriously thinking about his future and is like... home. All the time. They don’t live together, but Thea visits him often enough to know that Oliver’s spent more time at home in the last month that he has the entire time since he moved out of the mansion. 

“Does this have to do with your speakers randomly playing music last night?” she asks, hopping onto the kitchen counter, watching him intently. 

He’s bent over his new speakers, muttering to himself as he yanks wires out from the main console. 

“It wasn’t random,” he growls, and then under his breath, he mumbles, “Hah. Let’s see you try hacking me now.” 

“If it wasn’t random then you’re telling me your speakers started playing Right Said Fred _on purpose_ last night?” 

Oliver straightens up and whirls around to face her. 

“No!” he exclaims. “Felicity did it. She hacked me, made my speakers play stupid music because she was drunk. Payback, apparently, even though I apologised. She thought it was hilarious.” 

_O-kay._ He’s got her attention now. Felicity? She’s never heard of a _‘Felicity’_ before, and the notion that her brother is friends with someone capable enough to hack into things is laughable at best. 

What an interesting development. 

“Who’s Felicity?” she asks curiously. 

“No one.” Oliver pauses, then changes his mind. “Not no one. New downstairs neighbour. Really smart.” There’s a shift in his expression, his eyes go glassy, like he’s reveling in wonder, before he snorts and appears to come back to himself. “ _Too_ smart. And she thinks she’s cute for playing that prank on me last night.”

“Well, _is_ she?” 

Oliver turns his head towards her, a furrow in his brow. “Is she what?” 

_“Cute,_ Ollie.” Thea rolls her eyes. “You said she _thinks_ she’s cute but is she actually?” 

This sort of information is _vital._ Whatever prank thing is going on is inconsequential, but if she’s attractive _and_ has the ability to get Oliver all worked up and flustered, then this Felicity girl warrants further investigation. 

_“No,_ she’s - it’s not... I mean, yes,” Oliver stutters. He wrinkles his nose, then shakes his head. “Yes, she’s cute. But she’s also infuriating. She came up here yelling at me for playing loud music ages ago, which I apologised for, and then last night she hacked me as some sort of payback - even though she accepted my apology!” 

The sudden blast of music from Oliver’s new speakers last night makes sense now. Oliver had scampered away with a nervous twitch in his step when the song started playing, startling them both in the middle of their movie night. Thea had been understandably confused at the turn of events, but Oliver - _Oliver_ had just disappeared. 

Five minutes later, the music suddenly stopped playing, and then when he returned he was no longer nervous and instead, very, very grumpy. It put an end to their night and Thea had gone to bed a little confused, but not particularly bothered about it. 

Until now.

“Okay, that’s a little funny,” Thea concedes. 

“Yeah, she thought so too,” Oliver grumps. He walks around the kitchen area, and Thea widens her eyes in surprise as he dumps the wires he’s been holding into a drawer. Oliver meanders his way back to the living room, flinging open a cupboard and lugs out a huge, rather old, boombox-looking thing. 

“Let’s see how funny she thinks _this_ is.” 

Thea’s hands fly to her ears the moment he plugs it in. Wailing static bursts through the speakers, grinding on her eardrums. “Ollie!” she cries out. “What the hell?!” 

Oliver lugs the thing around the room with strange determination, then faces the boombox over a vent on the floor. 

“Put the headphones on,” Oliver instructs, and she does so obediently.

She watches with intrigue as Oliver steps away, fiddling with his phone. The ambient noise and horrifying static filling the air have been muted because of the headphones, so she can’t hear whatever Oliver’s mumbling to himself. 

The floor - and consequently the kitchen counter she’s still sitting on - starts to vibrate, and shortly after, even with the noise cancellation on, obnoxiously _loud_ thumping music starts playing around her. 

It’s Ke$ha, she realises. Not exactly bad music, but not appropriate at all at eight in the morning on a Saturday, and absolutely not at _this_ volume. 

_Wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy_

She stares slack-jawed at her brother, who looks awfully pleased with himself. It strikes Thea that the vent that he’s strategically placed the speakers on probably connects to the apartment downstairs, which means - 

“She’s going to be so mad at you,” Thea yells at him over the music. “Especially if she’s not awake yet.” 

_Don't stop, make it pop. DJ, blow my speakers up_

Oliver looks at her, raises his eyebrows and shrugs. He makes a motion with his hands, twisting his palm over his ear. Thea pulls one side of the headphones off her ear, wincing at the burst of deafening music. 

“I’m going downstairs!” Oliver tells her with a grin on his face. He hurries off, not bothering to change the volume. “Be right back!” 

Oh _hell_ no. She’s not staying here - not if her brother’s about to go have a showdown with this mysterious Felicity person, and definitely not while this obnoxious music is still blaring. 

By the time Thea finds her way to Oliver’s private access elevator - she needed to make sure she looked presentable to meet Felicity - Oliver’s already gone, so Thea makes a calculated guess and assumes Felicity’s only one floor down. 

Which turns out to be right, because when the doors slide open a few seconds later, she spots her brother’s back hovering at the far end of the hallway. He’s skulking - there’s no better word for it - in front of a door, shifting from one foot to the other. 

Thea hangs back, partially hidden behind a vending machine, intent on watching this, whatever _this_ is, unfold organically. She waits for him to knock, or do something other than stand pointlessly in front of the door, but Oliver doesn’t do a single thing. 

“What kind of twisted mating ritual is this?” Thea wonders out loud. 

Just as she’s deciding if she wants to head back up to Oliver’s penthouse, the door swings open, violently, and a tiny blonde comes barrelling out, hands swinging up to thump her brother against his chest. 

“What the _hell,_ Oliver!!”

Yeah, okay. Felicity _is_ pretty cute. From her sleep-tousled hair down to her bright purple pajama pants adorned with cartoon penguins, Thea understands why her brother seems so taken with her. 

“Are you _crazy?!_ ” 

It’s a testament to how loud Felicity is that Thea can hear every single word over Kesha singing about police shutting things down.

“I was sleeping, Oliver! And this music is-” 

“I warned you last night!” Oliver yells back at her. 

He leans forward, presumably smirking in her face the way he usually does when he knows he has the upper hand in an argument. Thea’s very well-acquainted with that particular look, and from her vantage point, Felicity seems to hate it as much as Thea does too. 

“Did you change speakers? I can’t control the music!” Thea realises Felicity has her phone clenched tightly in one hand, and she’s jabbing at it like it’s personally offended her. 

“Yeah, I’m not _stupid,_ I used my old ones, _”_ OIiver taunts her. “Plus, I gave you a whole night to prepare for this!” 

“That’s not fair! I’m - I’m not at a 100%. My head hurts so bad!”

Felicity pockets her phone and starts punching her brother again, but Thea’s not sure how much effort she’s putting into her attacks because Oliver barely flinches at the contact. 

Instead, he lets her land a few more against his chest, laughing hard, if the way his back is shaking is anything to go by, before he catches her hands with expert ease and letting them swing down between them. 

Thea watches with interest as Oliver takes a step closer to Felicity, head bowing down to her height. They’re awfully close, invading each other’s personal space, but neither seem to have a problem with it. A few tense seconds tick by, and Oliver tilts to the side. 

“Are you really - wait. Let me turn the music off.” Oliver shoves one hand into his pocket and - _oh, thank god_ \- the song finally cuts off mid-chorus. His voice drops into a concerned murmur. “Hey, you’re... really not okay.” 

A surge of warmth filters through Thea’s heart. It’s not like she’s never heard Oliver concerned before, but the thing is, she’s never heard him sound concerned over anyone other than _her._ Thea inches forward, torn between staying in the shadows secretly watching them, and making her presence known so she can officially meet this woman. 

“Yeah, no shit Sherlock,” Felicity snaps at him. “I have a splitting headache which was made worse by your stupid music, and I’ve had a horrible week, so _sorry_ if I’m not laying out the welcome mat for you.”

The conversation descends into an indecipherable mumble and Thea rolls her eyes, decision made. She pops out from behind the vending machine and starts walking to Felicity’s door. They’re still talking quietly, and Thea can tell that Felicity’s already less irate with her brother. 

The classic Queen charm - never fails to work wonders. 

“... some breakfast?” 

Thea jerks to a stop a few feet behind Oliver when she catches the tail end of his question. Is he... Did she hear him right? Is he offering to _make her breakfast?_

“You can cook?” Felicity repeats over a small snort of laughter. 

“I’ll have you know that I am a genius in the kitchen.” 

“Sure,” Felicity drawls skeptically. 

“I promise you, I haven’t had any complaints about any of my abilities - in the kitchen or otherwise,” Oliver insists. 

Thea shakes her head. Is _this_ how he flirts? Her brother has zero game. None at all. He’s lucky she’s here to save him from more embarrassment. Honestly. 

“Did you forget about me?” Thea taps him on his shoulder when she’s close enough to the two of them. “What about my breakfast?”

Oliver spins around and Thea manages to catch a glimpse of Felicity’s face over his shoulder, whose expression shutters the moment she sees Thea. Her lips press together into a thin line and a slight blush creeps up her cheeks. She runs a hand through her blonde hair, blinking a few times before sighing. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to keep Oliver from you,” Felicity tells her before adding quickly, “Or interrupt your night. With the music, I mean. I was just having some fun.”

“Don’t apologise,” Thea waves her off. She nudges Oliver out of her way so she can greet Felicity properly. _“I_ thought it was funny! Ollie definitely thinks he’s too sexy for shirts sometimes, so you were right on the money. Anyway, hi, I’m Thea.” 

Felicity’s eyes widen comically. “Oh, you're his sister Thea!” 

“Yes, who is meant to be upstairs,” Oliver butts in. His hand curves around her elbow, trying to drag her further away from Felicity. Thea resists his manhandling, planting both her feet firmly on the ground. 

“You were just about to make Felicity breakfast,” Thea accuses. “And what? Leave me to fend for myself?” 

“Actually, he isn’t. He’s going to go back upstairs and leave me alone," Felicity decides. Oliver sputters in protest, but the blonde's glare is impressive. Thea wonders what it’s like when Felicity _doesn’t_ look like she’s been run over by a truck. Scary. 

“No offence,” Felicity continues, sighing as she pinches the bridge of her nose. “But I’m really not up for any sort of company right now. And besides, I only have cereal, so you can just...” She makes a vague gesture with her hands, clearly dismissing them, then turns around and walks back into her apartment, slamming the door in their faces. 

The way Oliver’s expression falls - his mouth dropping half an inch as his forehead scrunches up in what appears to be confusion - is hilarious. Thea’s pretty sure her brother’s never faced such profound rejection before and this whole situation with Felicity is just so, so great. 

“You aren’t just gonna give up are you? Cause she definitely looks like she needs an Oliver Queen breakfast.” Thea needles him, poking him in his chest. 

It’s been a while since she’s been able to toy with him like this. Laurel had been - she mentally shudders - and the string of women after (and during) Laurel hadn’t been as intriguing as Felicity. None of them have ever managed to render Oliver as flustered as he is right now, that’s for sure.

“She doesn’t want - she slammed the door in our faces, Thea!” 

Thea cocks an eyebrow, challenging him. “When has that ever stopped you before?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Super glad there are still people kicking around this fandom to share my nonsensical words with. Thank you for all your feedback, comments, kudos, etc. 
> 
> You can also reach me on Twitter: @griever_11


	3. Chapter 3

Oliver Queen is an enigma. 

Felicity had thought of him as an arrogant tool based on what little she knew of him; an inconsiderate neighbour with questionable taste in music, and more money than anyone could ever dream of. She had had this whole image of him in her head, made up of bits and pieces of tabloid stories and her own unfortunate encounters with him in her apartment building. 

Except now, that image is unraveling, picked apart thread by thread by the simple fact that he’s currently bustling about in her kitchen, making her breakfast because he felt bad that he’d woken her up and made her hangover worse. 

Oliver Queen is _making her breakfast_ because _he felt bad._

Cocky bastard Oliver Queen, playboy extraordinaire - her boss’ son! - is puttering around her tiny kitchen, humming under his breath, while his little sister just stares at her with curious, unblinking eyes. 

This whole thing is just... so weird. 

“Did you just call us weird?” Thea asks. “Ms. ‘Hacked into my neighbour’s speakers to play a sexually charged, very suggestive song in the middle of the night for fun’?” 

Felicity cuts her gaze to Thea, wincing when her head throbs even harder at the sudden movement. The corners of the younger woman’s lips are upturned, a teasing gleam in her eye as she smiles at Felicity. 

“That was meant to be an inside thought,” Felicity mutters. 

“She babbles,” Oliver chimes in unhelpfully. He still has his back turned to them but his head is half-turned to the two women. “Don’t mind her.” 

“Don’t mind me - I - You’re in _my_ apartment!” Felicity sputters. “Uninvited! And you’re telling her not to mind _me?!”_

Oh, her own screeching isn’t doing anything good for her headache. Not at all. She doesn’t bother waiting for a reaction from either of them and drops her head onto her kitchen counter, folding her hands over the top in resignation, regretting her split second decision to change her mind about having him make her breakfast. 

She’d turned him down earlier, slammed the door in his face, even, but a few minutes after that, Oliver had yelled about making her bacon and eggs, without her having to move as much as a single muscle and she had relented. There's only so much pitiful pleading a girl can handle before she caving, after all. 

“You let us in, therefore, we’re invited. I’d also like to remind you that you, too, have barged into my place uninvited. Twice,” Oliver says haughtily, his voice grating on every nerve ending. She squints at him from under her arms, and he wiggles his brows comically at her, still half-turned, so his profile is highlighted in the pale morning light streaming through her window. “Hacking is not cool, Felicity.”

_“I_ think hacking is cool,” Thea interjects, which makes Felicity pop her head up to flash the girl a smug smile.

Oliver glowers at his sister before narrowing his eyes at them. _“Anyway,_ I brought all my own stuff from upstairs like I said I would, so I don’t understand why you’re being so grumpy about this. You don’t have to lift a finger.”

“Excuse me, _I_ went upstairs to get the ingredients. You just stood there making puppy dog eyes at her,” Thea grumbles. 

“How did I make puppy dog eyes when her door was shut, Thea? And I don’t make puppy-”

“Oh, yeah? And what do you call this?” 

Felicity assumes Thea’s making a face; she doesn’t know because she’s back to burying her head under her arms, eyes screwed shut in an attempt to fight the pressure building behind her eyeballs. 

Oliver snorts dismissively. “I did not look like that.” 

“Yes, you did. All _‘please, let me in, Felicity, I can make you bacon and eggs, pleeeaase’_ ,” Thea mocks her brother in a deep, growly voice. 

“Yep, it was exactly like that,” Felicity confirms, unable to keep the slight laughter from her voice. It comes out muffled, echoing through the hollow space between her face and the counter. His uncharacteristic begging was what made her change her mind about letting him in, and she’s not about to let him pretend it never happened.

Her words bring the lighthearted sibling banter to a halt, and Oliver turns his attention to her. It’s clear her position hunched over the counter, head buried in her arms as she nurses her migraine, causes him some concern. 

“Hey, what are you doing? Are you okay?” 

A hand presses against the back of her shoulders. Thea’s, she assumes, since Oliver should be busy watching the stove and not be anywhere near her. 

“She’s fine, Ollie. Stop bothering her and concentrate on feeding us.”

Felicity decides right then that Thea is by far the superior Queen sibling. She extricates her head from her mini-huddle and grins at her in solidarity.

“You should drink some water,” Oliver tells her, drifting away from the stove and ignoring his sister. He puts a glass of water in front of Felicity, tapping the rim once. He tilts his head imploringly. “Please?” 

“Go back to cooking our food,” Felicity grumps. She does oblige him though, tipping the glass of water back and swallowing a few mouthfuls to placate him. She opens her eyes when she’s finished, only to find that he’s now towering over her, leaning over the counter so that he’s mere inches away from her face. 

His eyes are _so_ blue. 

A wrinkle of worry between his brows mars his otherwise beautiful - yes, _objectively_ beautiful - face, and much to her chagrin, his proximity causes her heart to stumble over itself, her heartbeat picking up the pace as she swallows the lump in her throat. It’s like he’s looking right into the deepest, darkest, corners of her soul and it takes everything in her to twist her head, breaking their connection. 

A faint whiff of mint and _man_ drifts around her and she finds that she really likes it. 

She likes how he smells. Oh God, what is happening to her? 

And suddenly, in the middle trying to sort out the convoluted mess that is her brain, Oliver slaps his palm against her forehead. 

Felicity snaps her head back at the unwarranted contact, flushing, cheeks heating up. She grabs his hand and yanks it away from her head, then drops it like she’s been burnt. “Hey, don’t do that!” 

Oliver grunts under his breath, eyes narrowing with annoyance. He puts his hand back on her forehead. “Are you sure this is just a hangover and not that you’re actually sick?” 

_“Yes,”_ Felicity hisses. “I barely know you.” She leans her head back, shying away from his touch, but Oliver’s reach is great and it doesn't do anything. His palm stays on her forehead. “Don’t touch me.” 

“It’s not like I’m touching you for fun!” Oliver argues and this time he puts his other hand against his own forehead, comparing both their temperatures. “You feel a little warm.” 

“You shouldn’t be touching me for _any_ reason!” Felicity squeals, leaning even further away from him. This time, Oliver’s hand does fall away. 

He growls under his breath, then clenches his jaw. The corner of his left eye twitches. “I’m making sure you’re not sick!” 

“I’m _telling_ you I’m not!” 

“But you feel sick!”

The chair she’s been slumped on all morning skids backwards as she scrambles to her feet, prepared to tell him _exactly_ how she feels about intrusive neighbours who think they know her own body better than she does. 

The sudden movement turns out to be a bad idea, because the moment she stands up, she finds her entire kitchen tilting on its axis, and strange, bright, spots start blooming in her vision. Her hands swing out to grasp the edge of the counter, keeping herself from stumbling over. 

Okay, maybe Oliver’s not entirely wrong about the whole being more than just hungover thing. 

“Whoa, hey, watch out.” 

Worry weaves through Oliver’s words, soft and delicate. Once again, his empathy catches her by surprise. Who _is_ this guy? She’s struggling to reconcile what she knows of him with the man who’s peering at her with so much concern clouding his eyes, who’s making her breakfast in her kitchen like it’s the most normal thing in the world. 

It’s what makes everything that much more frustrating; because _none_ of this is normal. Nothing about this entire morning is making sense to her hungover, alcohol-addled brain, and if there’s one thing that Felicity hates, it’s when things don’t make sense. Especially because he’s now rounding the counter to stand next to her, one hand curving over her shoulder to hold her steady. 

“I said, don’t touch me!” she snaps, shrugging out of his grasp violently. 

Does she care that she sounds ungrateful? No. He’s the one who woke her with the music, exacerbating her pain, then invited himself over by bribing her with food - which means she’s had to have her ‘have company face’ on when all she wants to do is curl up in a ball and sleep for the next one hundred hours. 

“How are you still so stubborn when you can’t even stand up straight?” 

Her eyes flash hotly at him. “I’m not -” 

She's interrupted by screeching music. 

_You can't touch this_

_You can't touch this_

Her hands come up to cover her ears, the volume deafening, sending another surge of sharp twinging pain right between her eyes. She can’t help the pitiful whimper that escapes from her lips as she slams her eyes shut. 

“Thea!” Oliver yells. 

“What?” 

“Cut it out!” 

“You guys were ignoring me, and since bad music seems to be the only thing that can get either of you to pay attention, I thought I’d give it a go.” 

Felicity barely hears Thea’s voice because her hands are still plastered over her ears, but Felicity detects the sulking, and she’s tinged with guilt. She’d been so preoccupied arguing with Oliver that she had forgotten that the less annoying, infinitely more tolerable Queen sibling is right there with them too. 

_I told you homeboy you can't touch this_

_Yeah that's how we're livin' and you know you can't touch this_

“Thea, I’m going to throw that phone out if you don’t -”

“Oh, _fine.”_

Thea silences the thumping beat of MC Hammer, and Felicity cracks an eye open. 

“Just wanted you two to know that the pan is burning, is all.” 

With an undignified yelp, Felicity sprints to her stove top, panic stricken as the blackened pan starts smoking. No, no, no. She’s already had one smoke alarm call out this month from that time she tried to make spaghetti. She can’t have another one. 

Ignoring the nauseating headspin her movements have caused, she grabs the handle and tosses the entire contents (oh, shame, that bacon did smell so good) into the trash and dumps the pan into her sink. 

Both Oliver and Thea look on, wide eyed in surprise; Thea with a tiny frown on her face as pouts at the still smoking bacon in the trash. Slowly, she helps Felicity turn on the tap, dousing the still sizzling pan in the sink with water. Oliver, on the other hand, just stares blankly at her. 

Yeah, enough of that. 

“Out!” Felicity demands. “Now!” 

Oliver snaps out of his stupor and shakes his head. “But breakfa-”

“No!” Felicity fights the pounding in her head and uses both her hands to shove him out of her kitchen. Wow, his shoulders are _solid._ She digs her fingers into his sinewy muscles, maybe harder than she should have, just to see how sturdy he really is, and forces him to turn around. Oliver sputters wordlessly, but his feet move along with her nonetheless.

“I said I’d make you breakfast,” Oliver insists as she herds him out her door. “To make up for your horrible morning.” 

“I... appreciate the gesture, I do, but I really am not up for company right now so I need you to go. Now.” 

“Okay, okay. We get the hint.” Thea’s the one who speaks this time, and she helps Felicity push Oliver all the way out the apartment. “He’s a little dense, sometimes. But he means well. We’ll take a raincheck on breakfast, obviously.” 

Felicity doesn’t have the heart to tell Thea that she’s probably not going to make good on that raincheck - she’s not about to relive any part of this morning, like, ever, but she forces a smile onto her face and nods anyway. 

“Sure,” she lies. The hangover might be making her hallucinate, but she thinks the pout on Oliver’s face eases up a little. Thea practically beams at her. 

“Next time,” Felicity forces out, just a little guiltily, before shutting the door in Oliver’s face for a second time that morning. 

* * *

_Next time._

Famous last words.

Because despite Felicity convincing herself that her interaction with the Queen siblings had been nothing but a once in a blue moon occurrence, over the next couple of days, her exposure to the scion of Starling City increases at an exponential rate and Oliver makes an appearance in _literally_ every aspect of her life. 

It only takes him one day, a little under 24 hours after his ill-fated attempt at making her breakfast, for him to impose his presence upon her once more. 

Felicity’s dragging her exhausted, stuffy-nosed self (yeah, she’s resigned herself to the fact that she _is_ actually sick) down to the laundry room, one hand fisted tightly over her bag of dirty clothes, holding the other flat against the wall so she doesn’t fall over her own feet, when she next sees Oliver.

Or rather, when she bumps, _face first_ , into him. 

“Oof, hey!” 

It takes her a moment to find her bearings, eyes clenched shut to fight off the sudden onslaught of dizziness that overwhelms her at the contact. Her glasses dig painfully into the bridge of her nose and she whines in pain. 

It’s like she’s just walked into a brick wall, which is strange because there shouldn’t be one right in the middle of the laundry room. Should there? Her hand is _against_ a wall, so she shouldn’t be bumping _into_ one. 

“I’m not a brick wall.” 

Felicity squints at the wall and her heart sinks when she comes face-to-face with a very amused, albeit a little scruffy looking, Oliver. Sturdy, muscular, built like a tank, Oliver. 

Of course. 

Felicity wrinkles her nose. “You _feel_ like a wall.” 

“And you _sound_ like a frog.” 

Felicity drops her laundry bag on the ground, jaw dropping open, affronted. She purses her lips. “Excuse me?” 

“I just mean that you sound like you’re sick,” Oliver backpedals and it’s very reassuring knowing that even with a nose so stuffy she can’t feel the appendage anymore, her patented glare still holds some power over him. “Which you denied yesterday.” 

“I didn’t think I was sick yesterday,” she laments pitifully. “But then around dinner time I realised I was keeping nothing down and now I’m all ache-y and I can’t breathe through my nose, so...” Felicity lifts her shoulders in an attempt to shrug, but even that takes too much effort. She pouts. “Laugh it up, you were right, I guess I’m sick.” 

“You shouldn’t be doing laundry then.” 

He says it so matter-of-factly, with the air of someone who has never run out of clothes before (duh, he is who he is). He also probably hasn’t been so sick as to be drenched in so much sweat during the night that _everything_ that came in contact with last night’s clothes now needs a good wash. 

“Not everyone has a handmaid to do all their chores for them, unfortunately,” Felicity mutters darkly, kicking her bag towards the closest available machine and elbowing Oliver out of her way. 

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m the one down here, not a handmaid, so you don’t have to take that judgmental tone with me.” 

She lets his pointed remark slide. She’s sick. She can’t be held accountable for whatever irritable thing that comes out from between her lips. Turning her back to him, she shoves her hands into her pockets for coins. She needs coins. Oh no, did she forget to grab her stash of coins from the - her back pocket jingles noisily as she pats herself down and she sighs in relief. 

“Felicity, why are you ignoring me? What’d I do this time?” 

Ugh, why is he so annoying? 

“I’m just trying -” She shoves some coins into the slot with more force than necessary “- to do my laundry. It’s got nothing to do with you.”

“Well, do you need help?” 

The question comes so far out of left field that it makes Felicity spin around, her fist still closed around her last remaining quarters. “What?” 

“Your um... that bag looks heavy.” Oliver points to the bag of clothes at her feet. “I can help you load the machine, and that way you don’t exert yourself too much.” 

He doesn’t wait for an answer - and Felicity doesn't think she’s capable of forming one anyway, not when her brain is still catching up on _what the fuck is happening_ \- and lifts her bag effortlessly into the air, gently pushing her aside. 

He pauses before emptying the bag full of clothes into the machine and half-turns to her. 

“Do I need to separate, um, colours and stuff?” 

“Uh...” Her brain can’t process what he’s asking of her. First, he’s offers to make her breakfast, and now he’s doing her laundry for her? And he wants to separate her colours? What the fuck? 

“No,” she croaks. She wiggles her fingers in the air. “Just... they all go in.” 

“‘Kay. Easy.” 

And that is how Oliver Queen ends up doing her laundry. 

Oliver and his rippling back muscles that his really thin, white shirt he’s wearing does nothing to hide, is loading up the industrial washing machine in their building with her dirty, sweaty, clothes, carefully sifting them so they don’t bunch up when the cycle starts. 

She swears if she were a computer, she’d be suffering a catastrophic blue screen of death right about now. 

She’s still staring at him wordlessly, seeing but _not seeing_ \- she’ll blame it on being sick - when Oliver finishes, pouring a generous amount of laundry powder into the machine and then starting it up. 

“Now that that’s done, I can make you some soup,” he announces as he turns back to face her, clapping his hands together. 

Felicity’s sure she looks like the dumbest person on the planet, with the way her jaw is hanging open, hands hanging limply by her side as she stares at him. 

“I _can_ cook.” He reiterates his statement from the day before. “And I make a mean chicken noodle soup, so how about you go back home and settle in, and I’ll bring some over when it’s ready?” 

No words. She has _no_ words. “You... soup?” 

“Yeah, soup,” he repeats. He enunciates his words clearly, like he’s worried she doesn’t understand him. “Chicken noodle soup. Is that okay?”

That actually sounds heavenly. It’s been a really long time since someone fussed over her like this, let alone offer to make her comfort food. She shouldn’t look a gift horse in it’s mouth, right? If Oliver’s so willing to help her out... 

Felicity nods, licking her lips as she thinks of warm, soupy goodness. “Uh-huh. That’s okay. Thank you.” 

“Cool! Great!” The grin on his face blooms wide, and Felicity notices that he’s not just devastatingly hot, but extremely adorable like this; cheeks puffed up, teeth catching his lips as he realises he’s managed to wear her down. “I’ll get right on it, and then you just let me know when you want me to come over?” 

He waits for her to nod in agreement before he rushes out the laundry room without another backward glance. Just like that, Felicity’s left alone with the steady thrumming of the laundry machine as background noise to the far less soothing throbbing in her head and the lingering source of confusion that is Oliver Queen.

There’s no question that he’s a strange guy. A little over a month ago, he’d been so wasted he thought she was a _unicorn,_ and now he’s claiming he can cook and has offered (begged) to make her food, _twice._

The parade of women waltzing in and out of his penthouse since the day she moved in has dwindled and now, the only woman she’s seen heading up to the penthouse recently is Thea. Did he undergo a personality transplant? 

Ugh. 

Thinking about him only makes her head hurt worse, and with a painful sigh, she pushes him out of her thoughts and drags herself out of the laundry room. At least she has chicken noodle soup to look forward to, even if she’s still marginally skeptical about Oliver’s purported cooking skills. 

It occurs to her as she slowly makes her way back to her apartment that she doesn’t know how to tell him to come over. Being sick has really compromised her brain functions, she laments dejectedly, and that means she has to hack her way into his private access elevator to tell him - 

Oh. 

No, she doesn’t. 

She leaves her front door unlocked so she doesn't have to get up to let him in once she’s settled in, and flops down onto her couch, her body sagging with relief into the comfortable cushions. Her fingers stumble clumsily over her phone, eyes squinting against the screen glare, hoping that he’s reconnected his speakers. 

There it is. ‘ _Oliver’s New Speakers’._

She giggles quietly under her breath as she scrolls through her music, selecting the song she’s been thinking of for the last fifteen minutes. Then sobers up immediately because even that small action sends a piercing jolt of pain right between her eyes. She scrubs through the song until she gets to the part she wants. 

It’s not like she has his number or anything in the first place (she conveniently ignores the fact that she can probably get it in like, under 30 seconds, flat). Plus, surely he won’t get mad at her for using his speakers again since she’s sick, right? 

She flicks the volume control all the way up, holds her breath and then hits play, bracing herself for the sounds that will come through her ceiling. 

_All in all you’re just a-nother brick in the wall_

_All in all you’re just a-nother brick in the wall_

She stops the song there, then rewinds and plays the two lines again. It doesn’t get a third repeat, because the Bluetooth connection gets cut off and Oliver’s speakers disappear as an available device from her phone. 

Well. Message sent. She’s home and he can come by with her soup whenever. Her laundry cycle won’t end for another hour and Oliver probably won’t be done with whatever culinary miracle he’s concocting for a while, so Felicity allows her eyelids to flutter shut for a second. 

Just a second.

All she needs is one second of rest. Max. And then she’ll get up and bother Oliver some more.

* * *

She wakes up to the gentle, familiar tune of 90s soft rock. 

Her head feels heavy, her arms and legs stiff from the prolonged lack of movement. She feels a little better though, and she can breathe through her nose now so she’ll take that as a win. 

She’s all gross and sweaty again, and it’s dark. Her curtains are drawn closed even though she swears she left it open earlier. How long had she napped for? 

She lifts a hand to adjust her glasses so that she can see a little better - only to find that her face is bare. 

_What?_

Bolting upright, she gets caught in a tangle of her thick blanket bunched around her legs. Her hands reach out to her coffee table on instinct, blindly feeling around for her glasses. Her fingers find them eventually and she jams them on her face, heart racing, on the verge of panicking because this is weird and strange and had somebody been _in her apartment?!_

Her vision adjusts slowly and Felicity swallows hard, a little scared of what she might find in the dim light. Except, instead of her worst fears of her apartment being ransacked and trashed from a home invasion, everything... seems in order. Her computers are still humming quietly in her bedroom, her phone is lying on the coffee table - and if someone was trying to rob her, surely that would have been the first to go. 

And then she smells it. Delicious, heavenly, and absolutely mouth-watering. The scent reminds her of home, of when her mother would try (and fail) to make her feel better with food - and then in the end Donna would just order soup from their local Chinese place. 

Oh! Chicken noodle soup! 

Felicity jumps off her couch - swaying a little from vertigo - and makes a beeline for her kitchen. There, in the middle of her kitchen counter is a big crock pot plugged into a socket on her wall. Steam billows out of the lid, the red LED indicating that it’s keeping its contents warm. 

“Oh man,” she moans, stomach rumbling at the thought of soup. It smells so good. 

How had she missed him coming into her apartment? With a giant crock pot? She takes the lid off and inhales deeply, so thankful that she can smell again, and yeah okay, she’s going to have to have some like, _now._

She pulls out a bowl and a ladle from her cupboard, but before she gets into the soup, her eyes are diverted to a note sticking out from under the crock pot. She smiles to herself as she puts her bowl down and pulls the note out. 

_‘Hey you were asleep when I came in,’_ it reads. _‘I didn’t want to wake you so I just plugged this in. You looked cold too so I covered you up and took your glasses off. Hope that’s okay. I also hope you like the soup.’_

A sliver of warmth ripples through her at the image of Oliver tucking her blanket in and around her. It makes her blush, skin heating up at the thought. Her throat goes dry, but she keeps reading. 

_‘Picked up your laundry from downstairs. I heard people steal clothes if you leave them unattended for too long. They’re in front of your room door.’_

Her gaze drifts up across the room and sure enough, there’s the bag of her clothes, leaning against the doorway. Her heart fills with warm fuzzy feelings and a wave of gratitude crashes over her. Her stomach flutters, twists and somersaults in a lovely, very welcoming way.

He’s sweet. 

The realisation hits her like a lightning strike. Straight through her entire body. 

_Oliver’s a sweet guy._

There’s no question about it - not anymore. Sure, he’d been a jerk that first time they met, but everyone has bad days, don’t they? She hadn’t been particularly nice to him either. 

But now he’s making her comfort food and bringing up her laundry and her glasses fog up from the heat on her skin and, oh, she’s going to get teary eyed soon, overwhelmed with emotion. She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and looks back down at the final lines of the note. 

_‘And why is your door never locked? It’s so dangerous. I’m locking it behind me when I leave. Can you please let me know when you wake up so I know you’re okay? This is my number - please text me, I don’t need anymore heart attacks from my speakers_ . _As payback you get to listen to_ Michael Learns to Rock _while you sleep. On repeat. Oliver.’_

The music that’s been playing since she woke up - and that she’s been ignoring because her attention’s been focused on the idea of chicken noodle soup - filters back through her senses. It’s coming from her laptop that she’s left open, and that Oliver’s obviously taken advantage of. 

It takes her a minute, but when the song registers, Felicity snorts and chokes back a laugh. It’s _Sleeping Child,_ a song she hasn’t heard since she was a toddler, and is by far the cheesiest thing she’s heard in a really long time. 

_Oh my sleeping child the world's so wild_

_But you've build your own paradise_

_That's one reason why I'll cover you sleeping child_

She shakes her head and reminds herself to send him a text as he requested later, but for now - she lets out a self-satisfied sigh as she folds his note and shoves it into her pocket. 

It’s soup time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your sweet comments and feedback! xoxo. One more after this! 
> 
> Twitter: @griever_11


	4. Chapter 4

  
  


Having Oliver’s number is both a blessing and a curse at the same time. If anyone told Felicity when she first moved to Starling, that one day she’d have Oliver Queen in her phone contacts, she’d call them crazy and have them committed. 

Because he’s her boss (kind of) but also, because not only does she now have a friend in him (also kind of), but said friend happens to be extremely persistent and resourceful when it comes to wanting to help her. With _anything._

He’d hovered at her place all weekend, offering to run errands for her, do her chores, cook - he even came around to fix her heating the night before, and while Felicity does appreciate how gung-ho he is about being a good neighbour, she’s also... weirded out by it. 

It’s strange, endearing, and frustrating all at once, which is a combination of feelings that Felicity has now come to associate with Oliver, and Oliver alone. 

These feelings are further compounded when Oliver makes an appearance at her work the first day she’s back after falling ill, much to the shock and horror of all her colleagues. He turns heads wherever he goes, naturally, but Oliver being in Queen Consolidated is as rare as a blue moon. Felicity hasn’t ever seen him at the office since the day she started here, so she understands their surprise. 

He swaggers in - because there really isn’t any other word for the way he commands the entire room with his presence - around noon, and waltzes up to her assistant without a care in the world. 

“I believe Felicity Smoak works here. I need to see her.”

She hears him through the glass wall and shakes her head at his unapologetic demand. He oozes entitlement, leaning against her assistant’s desk without a care in the world. It probably never even occurred to him that she might have been too busy for a casual walk-in. 

“Uh, Ms. Smoak?” Felicity’s assistant pops her head through the door, visibly flustered. “You have no scheduled appointments today, but -” her voice drops into a frantic whisper. “- it’s _Mr. Queen.”_

“Yeah, let him in,” Felicity says, making a ‘come in’ gesture with her hands. 

She spares her desk a quick once over, making sure nothing is out of place and then Oliver’s there, towering over her in a very, _very,_ well-fitted suit. 

Seriously, how does he pull off looking good in, quite literally, _anything_ he wears? 

“Hey,” he greets. His smile wavers for a second, his cheek twitching. “Nice office. Used to be Mom’s.” 

Felicity scrunches up her nose at the weird greeting. “Thanks... I think.” 

Why is he being awkward? Actually - Felicity rolls her chair back and tilts her head up to look at him curiously - why is he even _here?_

“So...” Oliver begins, as if he can read her mind. He’s all pensieve and seemingly deep in thought, shedding all traces of the confidence that he swaggered in with. “I have to ask... if you just conveniently forget to tell me that you work for my family’s company? 

Ah. Right. She blanches. Felicity was wondering when this would come up. 

She doesn’t feel guilty about it exactly, but it had occurred to her, between his very first _‘Hey, hope you’re feeling better!’_ text message and his subsequent check-ins with her throughout the entire weekend, that she probably _should_ have mentioned it. But then she got all wrapped up in being looked after and doted on and it just slipped between the cracks and she didn’t spare it another thought. 

She opts for a diplomatic response that isn’t an outright lie. “I didn’t forget, it didn’t come up.” 

“But I... we hung out the entire weekend,” Oliver pouts. He lets out a disgruntled huff as he settles into the chair on the other side of her desk. He’s so huge that he dwarfs the poor, unsuspecting office furniture. “I went out and got you milk and eggs for breakfast, made you lunch...” 

“Yes, and I’m really grateful for everything. You know that.” 

She really is. As reluctant as she is to acknowledge it, because depending on someone the way she did this weekend is so out of the norm for her, she knows she’s well enough to be at work today _because_ of Oliver and his kind attentiveness all weekend. 

The chicken soup had only been the start of it. Her next meal was a warm, freshly cooked lasagne, waiting for her at her door around dinner time with a bottle of orange juice. He made good on his promise of breakfast by making her pancakes on Sunday morning, leaving behind the leftover ingredients in case she ever wanted to make them herself. 

Though, she doesn’t know why she’d ever make them herself when Oliver is so willing to do it for her? 

She watches as his throat bobs. His expression, which usually defaults to ‘smug and flirty’, is weirdly blank now and it throws her for a loop. 

“And then last night, I came over to fix your thermostat for you and in all that time I was at your apartment, you couldn’t tell me you worked for Queen Consolidated?” 

He genuinely sounds put out by the omission, and why does that make her heart twist uncomfortably? 

She presses her lips together. “I would have told you if I knew you were going to be this disappointed,” she tells him sincerely. It was never her intention to cause the hurt that flashes through his eyes. “When I realised who you were - you know, back when you were my sleep nemesis -”

Oliver blinks. “Sleep nemesis?” 

“Yes, cause you were preventing me from sleeping - anyway, back _then,_ I thought that if I told you I worked here, you’d get me fired or something,” she explains. The urge to allay the quiet, disconcerting confusion radiating from the man sitting across from her is overwhelming. “Not that I think you’re that vindictive, of course. I know that now. But before -” 

“When I was your sleep nemesis,” he interjects in a half-amused huff of disbelief. 

Felicity narrows her eyes. “When you were all smug and drunk and playing loud music to get me to come upstairs, you were kind of a jerk, you know? So you can’t really blame me for thinking that you would retaliate by...” She falters when a shadow of irritation flits across Oliver’s face. 

“You really thought I’d get you fired? Just because I’m... because of who I am? That’s why you didn’t tell me you work here?”

She reaches across the desk to tap him gently over the back of his hand in a show of reassurance. 

“I made assumptions about you, and I was wrong,” she admits freely, sending him a small, but wholly sincere smile. “And now you _do_ know that I work at QC, and I don’t think you’re a jerk anymore, so everything is fine, right?” 

There’s no rhyme or reason as to why she’s this desperate to erase the dejection on his face. His doting over her this past weekend notwithstanding, the truth is that they barely know each other and she shouldn’t feel responsible for his feelings. 

And yet... 

“Oiver, everything _is_ fine, isn’t it?” Shehas to check. 

Oliver holds her gaze steadily at her repeated question. It’s a loaded look; a combination of quiet contemplation and intrigue, like he’s trying to put pieces of her together behind those crystalline blue eyes of his. 

“I never wanted you to think that I have... that I’m out to get you, or anything.” Oliver clears his throat, then abruptly looks away from her. All the confidence he’d walked in with; the cocky strut and his oozing charm, it all fizzles away and is replaced with subdued discomfort.

“I didn’t have a hidden agenda this weekend, and I still don’t. And if you’re still worried, I don’t have that kind of influence here to get you fired anyway.” He stares at a spot just to the left of her shoulder, pointedly ignoring Felicity’s confused furrow of her eyebrows.

“I know that there are _stories_... about me, so you making assumptions about the kind of person that I am is understandable. But I’d like to think that I’m not that person anymore. I’ve been trying really hard to be a better person and then I found out you were keeping this from me and I wanted to let you know that I didn’t... I’m not expecting anything in return from you.” 

She breathes out a near silent, “Oh.” 

She’s at a loss for words, which is an incredible feat in itself, because she _always_ has something to say. It never once crossed her mind that Oliver could have had an ulterior motive behind his attentiveness all weekend, but now that he’s brought it up, she supposes that it could have been well within the realm of possibility. 

Sex in exchange for being a good neighbour. 

But all it takes is one brief look at the contrition on his face to completely derail that train of thought. She stretches her arm across her desk and curls her fingers around his much bigger one and squeezes it once. 

“I never once thought you had anything other than good intentions. I actually think you’re a very sweet guy,” she offers and immediately regrets it. It’s _lame,_ and doesn’t fully encompass what she thinks of him. She tries again. 

“The guy in those stories, and I won’t lie, I have read them and heard all the gossip. _That_ guy wasn’t the one who picked up my laundry when I fell asleep, made sure I ate, and fixed my heating this weekend. I don’t know who the Page Six Oliver is -” She tilts her head so he’s forced to meet her eyes. “- but you don’t seem to be anything like him. And I like _this_ version of you a lot better.”

“Yeah? You do?” 

The shy uplift in his tone, the bashful tinge in his cheeks, and the hope that brightens his eyes sends a thrilling sensation coursing through her. Pleased with herself at being able to pull him out of his uncharacteristic funk, she continues. 

“I mean, what’s not to like? You cook, you clean, you know how to do laundry - which is shocking, by the way - you’re good with your sister...” 

“Yeah, please, keep going,” Oliver murmurs over a deep rumble of laughter that sounds oh, _so lovely._

He leans forward and gently pulls his hand out of hers - she hadn’t realised she’d still been holding on to it. He arches an eyebrow at her, teasing. “I didn't come here to get my ego stroked, but I’ll take it if you’re offering.” 

The way he speaks implies that he’s not talking about stroking merely his _ego,_ and the gasp that bubbles from inside her gets caught in her throat as Felicity flushes with embarrassment. 

“I’m not stroking you -” 

Oliver’s grin widens. 

“- _your ego!_ Oh my God!” 

Did her voice just go up an entire octave? She counts back from three in her head. 

“I’m telling you what I think of you! Not that I think of you a lot, or _any,_ even, but that I think you’re sweet and maybe wrongly portrayed by the media and we all know how the media likes to -”

“Felicity,” Oliver cuts her off, shaking his head good-naturedly, taking her babbling in his stride. “Thank you,” he says over a sigh of contentment. “For saying that. I’m... glad.” 

His tongue darts out quickly, running over the edges of his teeth. It draws her attention to his mouth, the coarse stubble peppering his chin, the shadow that falls over the sharp angle of his jawline. 

God, he’s so _handsome._

Felicity swallows the lump in her throat and arches her neck in an attempt to alleviate the heat creeping over her skin. When she tears her eyes away from his lips, her heart jumps, breath catching. 

He definitely just caught her staring. Ogling, if she’s being pedantic about it. She knows she’s beet red - all the way to the tip of her ears and her stomach does a loop-de-loop. _So busted._

Just like that, cocky Oliver returns, his tongue trapped between his teeth as he regards her with a lazy smirk on his face. 

He leans back and rolls his shoulders, the knowing pull of his lips indicating that he’s aware what the movement does to accentuate the breadth of his chest. He’s preening, Felicity realises with a start. Like a peacock. She stifles her laughter at the imagery that plays in her mind's eye. 

Oliver tips his chin, raking his eyes over her face, sending swirls of heat skittering over her skin. The tension in the office goes up several notches. Her mouth goes dry and the fluttering sensation in her stomach evolves into a full blown tumbling roller-coaster. 

His voice drops into rasp; a deep, almost-growl when he opens his mouth to speak again. 

“For what it’s worth, I think you’re pretty great too.”

Hang on. Felicity blinks with a start. Is he _flirting_ with her? 

“I’ve seen you while you’re sick and grumpy, _and_ in that ridiculous unicorn onesie, so that’s saying something.” 

Oh. he’s _definitely_ flirting with her. 

“You called me the prettiest unicorn you’ve ever seen,” she reminds him with a quirk of her lips, flirting right back. 

She won’t lie; the attention he’s bestowing upon her is very flattering. She had missed out on the opportunity to bask in it this weekend - what with being woefully ill and all - she’s merely making up for that right now. If he wants to flirt with her, who’s she to stop him? 

“And you liked me in my unicorn onesie. Fluffy, you said,” Felicity points out over a teasing smile, enjoying this strange turn of events. 

“I’m starting to think that I’ll like you in _anything_ ,” Oliver volleys back, dragging his now blatantly hungry eyes down the top half of her body. “And I like your hair up like this.” 

Felicity lifts a hand to twirl the end of her ponytail self-consciously as she blushes hard under his scrutiny. He likes her _hair?_

“You’ve had your hair down every time we’ve met before today,” Oliver clarifies. “Which is good too, don’t get me wrong, but there’s just something about this... whole _look._ I like it.” 

Oh, God. He’s licking his lips, fixated on her like he’s gazing at his favourite snack. Red hot, sizzling electricity charges between them and she almost chokes on her own breath. Flirting is one thing, but practically devouring her with his eyes? 

_Whole_ other level. 

“Oliver!” Her voice drops into a scandalised whisper. Her eyes dart past his smirking face to glance out her glass wall. Her assistant remains blissfully oblivious to the crackling energy in her office and she swallows her relief before hissing sharply, _“Stop it.”_

“So _you_ can tell me how good I look without a shirt on, but I can’t do the same thing? How unfair is that?” 

“But I - I have a shirt on! And I was drunk when I said that!” she sputters, aghast. 

Her chair rolls backwards from the force of her recoil as Oliver’s face cracks open in a brilliant grin, clearly amused by how flustered she is. Felicity scowls at his cheekiness, and wonders if it would be better if Oliver had remained sullen and moody like when he first walked into her office. 

“Which isn’t the point,” she stresses. “The point is that you shouldn't be saying things like that to me. Here. At work, in my office. ‘Cause you’re my boss and it’s _inappropriate.”_

“Ah!” Oliver folds his arms over his chest, all smug as if he knows something she doesn’t. “But I’m not your boss.” 

Felicity narrows her eyes at him. “Wha-”

“Sure, my mother and Walter run the company, and yeah, okay, that’s my last name out the front of the building, but I, personally, have nothing to do with Queen Consolidated. It’s not really my thing, you see. So, I’m not your boss. I’m not even a colleague. I’m just your average, well-intentioned, _very sweet,_ neighbour,” he drawls, eyes twinkling with mischief.

Right. _As if_ anything about Oliver Queen can be _average_. 

Her research into the company when she was first hired had revealed Moira and Robert, and later, Walter, as prominent figures in the company. It strikes her now that Oliver has never once been mentioned as having an Executive position within the company and it hadn’t raised any flags with her because she’d just assumed he’d be part of the company somehow, but now... 

She bites down on her bottom lip, pondering the latest revelation. 

“Still not appropriate,” she mutters, only this time with less conviction. Her tongue swipes a wet trail over her lips, her mouth having gone woefully dry as she ponders what this particular development between them could mean. 

It’s pretty clear, actually, the taunting voice in her head offers.

It means that the delicious specimen of a human being sitting before her with a triumphant look on his face _isn't_ as off limits as she initially thought. Felicity gulps as the swirling sensation in her stomach intensifies. She finds herself staring back at him, unblinking, losing herself in the depths of his _very_ blue eyes and the whimsical fantasy of feeling the shadow of his stubble scraping against her skin. 

Unfettered from the threat of impropriety and spurred on by fact that she’s also devastatingly attracted to him, her body reacts in the most visceral manner. Her breath hitches, her heart rate picks up, and much to her chagrin, when she gets like this, her brain-to-mouth filter also tends to fail her. 

In the back of her mind, wholly unsolicited and unwelcome, Nelly croons about _getting hot in here_ and _taking off all his clothes._

A needy whimper leaves her lips. “So inappropriate,” she finds herself whispering under her breath. 

Oliver hears her strained whining, and it only serves to dial up the intensity with which he’s scrutinising her, from mildly interested straight to fiery-pits-of-hell _scorching._

Can his mere perusal set her on fire? Because she feels like she is. The tips of her fingers are burning up, her cheeks have been flaming the moment he walked in, and -

“Okay. You know what? Let’s go,” Oliver growls, the gruff tenor of his voice sending tremors right through her. It snaps the tension stretched taut between them clean in half. 

“You were sick this weekend, so I didn’t want to - I couldn’t... but let’s go _now.”_

He stands up abruptly, pushing away from her desk. The movement sends one of her pens flying off her table. She flicks her eyes down to it before slowly traveling back up to Oliver’s looming form over her desk. 

“I’m sorry, what?” she squeaks. 

“You said -” Oliver snaps his mouth shut, his jaw twitching, his entire body radiating barely restrained energy. He lets out a slow breath of air, lips parting, chest expanding. His piercing gaze doesn’t waver. 

“You said that it was inappropriate for me to tell you how much I like you, _here_ .” He tips his head pointedly. “At work, in the office,” he continues, throwing her own words back at her. “So let's go _somewhere else.”_

Felicity goes completely still. Is he asking her to- 

He offers her his hand with an impatient grunt, palm facing upwards, fingers half-curled in invitation. Frozen in her seat, she trails her eyes from his open hand all the way up to his face with heightened caution. She’s no stranger to lust; hell, she’s practically swimming in it right now, but more often than she’d like, it’s never reciprocated and plus, this is _Oliver._

Oliver, with a horrifying taste in music, but a really big heart. Sweet and kind when he’s not being a cocky flirt, and with surprisingly mad skills in the kitchen. Oliver, with the _abs_ and the muscles and the smattering of stubble that has haunted her dreams more than she’d care to admit. 

She takes in his expression, one of muted excitement, with just a hint of fierce desperation beneath it. 

He wants this. Whatever this is. 

“Felicity,” he pleads. “I - just... okay.” He exhales heavily. His Adam’s apple bobs nervously in his throat. “Maybe coffee? Coffee date? Lunch? It’s lunch time.” 

It’s adorable, Felicity thinks, that her silence is getting him this worked up. He’s thrumming with it, fidgeting more with each second that Felicity remains seated. 

“Usually, I’m the one speaking in sentence fragments,” she murmurs candidly, quirking an eyebrow at him. “Do you think it’s contagious?” 

“Felicity!” Exasperation bleeds from his tone. 

His hand twitches, open and inviting and -

Yeah. Fuck it. 

She stands up and takes his hand.

* * *

Felicity learns a lot about Oliver in what she considers a very short amount of time. 

The first thing she learns is when he whisks her away to grab a coffee, and it’s that he’s _layered._ He’s charming, superficial and carefree on the surface, but if anyone ever bothered to try looking a little harder or dig deeper beneath his well-worn facade, they’d see that Oliver is one hell of a complex human being. 

He’s taking management classes at night, he reveals during their impromptu coffee date. 

Oliver, who dropped out of four Ivy League colleges, who blasted god-awful music for days on end, disrupting her precious sleep, and who, by all accounts, would have rather driven into a brick wall than spend an hour in a library, is going to _night school._

See? A walking contradiction. 

He tells her that it’s because Thea nearly died one night after a drug and alcohol induced bender. His sister’s accident had been a horrifying wake up call, jolting him out of his life of wanton debauchery, realising that Thea was on the verge of following in his less than exemplary footsteps. 

Coincidentally, and there’s a thoughtful, wistful smile on his face when he tells her this part of the story to her, all this happened around the time he met Felicity for the first time. 

“It’s like the universe was trying to tell me something,” Oliver says. 

“The universe,” Felicity repeats, lips pulling upwards in a teasing smile. 

“Yeah. The night I was introduced to my favourite unicorn -” 

_“Hey!”_

Oliver laughs at her indignance, but merely shrugs and continues, “- was the night that I decided to enroll in community college. The party you crashed was a last hurrah thing that Tommy insisted on throwing before I put on my ‘big boy pants’, as he calls it. I met you the night I decided to get my act together. I’m telling you, that’s the _universe_ talking and it shouldn’t be taken lightly...” 

And right here is the second thing Felicity finds out about Oliver; that he’s a romantic at heart. It’s the last thing she would have pegged him as, but he’s staring at her with wide, open eyes, speaking to her in hushed, shy undertones and it’s undeniable. 

He thinks meeting her was some kind of predetermined event designed by the universe - it doesn’t get more romantic than that. It leaves her feeling untethered, like she’s on one end of a see-saw with no way of knowing if she’s going up or down, reveling in the idea that Oliver Queen has likened their meeting to something as ethereal as _fate._

There’s no question that there’s sizzling mutual attraction between them, not after their charged, lust-driven interactions. But more than that, he’s being very clear that it’s not just physical attraction on his end, and about what his intentions are, which means that she should be, at the very least, concerned about how _intense_ all of this is. 

Except, she isn’t. 

On the contrary, her heart is swelling with anticipation, akin to that of a rolling wave about to hit its peak before crashing onto the shore. It’s exhilarating and exciting and, more profoundly, speaks to her sense of adventure.

She schools her features, willing the flurry of sensations in her stomach to calm down. She knows she’s on the precipice of something big, with the potential to end up being either ridiculously wonderful or horribly tragic. 

Her coffee is woefully nearly finished, and she’s stretched her lunch hour into an hour and a half in favour of going on this date with Oliver. Her penchant for responsibility screams at her to get back to work or it’ll mean yet another late night at the office, but she knows he’s waiting on her for _\- something -_ and she can’t bear to leave him hanging. Can't bring herself to h the little spark of hope in the way he’s looking at her. 

She grins at him after tipping the rest of her lukewarm coffee down her throat. Danger ripples through her when she finally makes a decision. 

“Well, since you put it that way... who am I to speak out against the universe?”

* * *

They have dinner a week later - their fourth date (she wonders when she’ll stop counting the number of dates they’ve been on - _never)_ \- and she finds herself in his penthouse, in her favourite jaw-dropping red dress, at a loss as to what to do while Oliver putters about in his kitchen, getting their dinner ready. 

She’s been up here a grand total of two times, only making it as far as the hallway past his private elevator to yell at him on both occasions, so being here is... strange, yet familiar at the same time. 

It’s tastefully decorated in strong, yet subtle, grey hues. Modern and sleek. She eyes his flat screen TV with interest, it’s 80 inches, minimum, and she starts thinking about how to finagle her way into having movie nights here. Star Wars on this screen? Amazing. 

Half-turning towards his kitchen, Felicity rolls her eyes when she spots him hunched over his stove top, carefully stirring whatever it is he’s preparing for tonight. He’s completely absorbed in it, glancing at his watch every couple of seconds before adding spices to the pot, and it’s an intriguing sight to behold for someone as culinary inept as herself. 

Over a series of text messages the day before, he told her about his aspirations to open up a restaurant in the future, which then led to him inviting her over for dinner. She’d jumped at the chance, obviously, but now that she can smell the deliciousness wafting towards her, she’s even more excited about the prospect of being wined and dined by him. 

She’s not stepping into the kitchen - no way - so she cranes her neck and tries to figure out what exactly he’s up to in there. “Is it almost ready?” she calls out. 

That makes him turn around. His face is a little red, whether it’s from the heat, she’s not sure, but the colour looks good on him and her stomach does the swirly, loop-de-loop thing again - something that’s happening with increasing frequency since agreeing to... whatever this is with him. 

His day-old scruff is back in full force, framing the apologetic tilt of his lips magnificently. “Ah, another ten minutes, I promise,” he tells her sheepishly. “I want to make sure everything is - well, the sauce needs to be right, because otherwise the rest of the -” 

“Hey, it’s fine, relax,” Felicity reassures him, amused by how stressed out he appears to be. She throws him a wink, traps her tongue between her teeth and laughs in an attempt to soothe him. “If it tastes as good as it smells, I’m sure it’s worth the wait.” 

His response to that is to sweep his gaze down her body, lingering, full of subtext and unspoken meaning, and it makes goosebumps form all over her skin. His voice is rough, gravelly and heavy with intent. 

“Most good things are worth the wait.” 

Right. Uh-huh. 

He’s not just talking about the food, that’s for sure. Her heart stutters - this guy is super _intense._ Plus she's not naive. Their previous dates have been frustratingly, borderline platonic; casual meals out, a nice walk by the riverfront, all book-ended with chaste kisses and goodnight hugs. Dinner tonight though, intimate and cosy at his place, has implications, and connotations, and she she did wear her best, sexiest underwear tonight so - 

“Yep,” she squeaks. Swallows hard. “I’m... sure. Where’s your -” She just needs a second to sort herself out. That’s all. “- bathroom?” 

“Down the hall, second door on your right,” he answers before turning back to monitor the stove. Which is a relief, because she doesn’t know how long she would have been able to stand there watching him wear the hell out of his shirt, watching him watch her with serious bedroom eyes, and _not_ spontaneously combust from the tension. 

The undercurrent of arousal and need that has been coursing through her system steadily over the past couple of days is about to come to a head. She feels this deep in her soul, though she’s not sure if it’s from being in his penthouse, surrounded by everything Oliver, or if it’s because it’s been a while since her last relationship. What she _is_ sure of, is that it’s ridiculous that he already has this much of an effect on her.

_Ugh._

She meanders down the hallway, entertaining a few very impure thoughts about Oliver _sans-_ Henley, because why the hell not, until she arrives at the door that presumably leads to his bathroom. Her fingers curl around the doorknob and pull it open only to walk in and realise it’s not his bathroom. 

It’s a -

_“Oliver!”_

Does she sound just a little hysterical? Maybe. But she’s already all keyed up over this date and that Oliver’s preparing what looks to be a very intimate dinner. And now, on top of that... 

“What’s wrong?” Oliver skids over behind her, spatula in hand, forehead wrinkled. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“You have your own laundry room!” she screeches, throwing the door fully open and waving her hand around. She turns and faces Oliver. “And your own washing machine!” 

His brow furrows. Ah, no - he’s not allowed to look this cute when he’s confused. He frowns. “And?” 

“Oliver,” Felicity grits through her teeth, trying not to let the aggravation get the better of her. Her gut churns with trepidation, doubt cascading over her, effectively dousing ice water over the simmering attraction she’s had for him the moment she stepped into his penthouse this evening. 

“What kind of game are you playing? Were you _stalking_ me that weekend?” 

Her heart clenches at the thought, flashing back to her _other_ horrifying experience with a stalker in college. What if she’s been reading him all wrong? What if all of this is just an elaborate ruse to get into her pants and everything that the tabloids have written about Ollie Queen is, in fact, true? 

“Stalking you?” he repeats, perplexed. He raises a hand to scratch the back of his head. “No?” He takes one look at her narrowed eyes and backpedals. “No. It’s not a question. I wasn’t... oh. Oh. You mean, when I -” 

“When you ‘bumped’ into me in the laundry room downstairs, yes!” She almost stomps her foot on the ground. “You have your own machine, what were you doing there? Other than lying in wait for sick, unsuspecting women, pretending to be thoughtful and kind -”

“You think I’m pretending?” 

The sharp edge in his voice cuts through the torrent of doubt and frustration swirling in her head. His expression goes from adorably confused to a much more considered one. His jaw twitches, his eyes shutter and he rolls his shoulders back. 

“Why would I be pretending?” he asks with a hardness in his tone that implies that it’s not a rhetorical question. He sucks in a breath, then appears to change his mind. His face softens, the crease between his eyebrows deepening. A heavy sigh falls from his lips. 

“I... I like you, Felicity. There’s nothing to _pretend_ about that. About any of this.” The honesty that bleeds from his confession is sobering. He can’t be playing any sort of game with her, not when he looks genuinely hurt by her accusation. Her resolve crumbles, frustration ebbing away like silk gossamer in the wind.

“And I wasn’t stalking you in the laundry room,” he continues in a careful tone, unaware of her dissipating anger. “I wasn’t even sure you’d be there in the first place.” 

“In the laundry room?” 

What’s the world record for the number of times ‘laundry room’ is mentioned in a single conversation? She’s sure they’ve just broken it. 

“Well, yeah.” He blushes. “It was the weekend, and people usually do laundry on the weekend. I was hoping to speak to you again, but you’re never home, so I thought the next best thing would be -” 

“Ah-hah, you _were_ stalking me!” Felicity points out, but she allows a smile to flutter across her face, injecting some levity into the situation and letting him know she’s not mad about it. Anymore. 

Oliver’s cheeks turn a darker shade of red and just like that, Felicity’s back to thinking about how adorable Oliver looks when he’s embarrassed. Adorably hot. Is that a thing? Maybe it’s just an _Oliver_ thing. 

“Stalking implies that I knew where you were, and that I was following you,” he argues softly. “I _didn’t_ know where you were, so it’s not technically stalking... I was more anticipating your movements. I wanted to see you again. To talk to you properly, without being angry, drunk or hungover.” 

God. How does he make arguing _semantics_ sound so hot? 

“I’m sorry if that’s... _creepy._ It sounds creepy now that I’ve said it out loud. But I didn’t have your number, and you’re never home. I didn’t want to just communicate with you using my speakers.” He ducks his head. “I hope I haven’t ruined anything. I’m sorry. Are you - do you want to go home?” 

Warmth unfurls within her but it’s not the same want-induced heat that’s also coursing through her veins. Felicity finds herself awash in a sense of comfort and safety, for some reason and it makes her brave. 

Brave enough to take a step forward, right into his personal space, and place a hand against his chest. She feels his heartbeat racing under the soft material of his shirt. _Interesting._ She tips her head to look up at him. 

_If my heart could beat, it would break my chest -_

Spike’s angry lament echoes in the back of her mind, and _of course_ her brain would bring up Buffy the Vampire Slayer right now - but still. Oliver’s very affected by this, and if she had to hazard a guess why, it’s because he thinks she’s about to bolt and cut their night short.

He’s scared that she’s going to leave. She lets that thought stew in her head for a second, analysing the implication - that he genuinely wants her there tonight - and the last of her doubts melt away. 

“You’re right, it was kinda creepy, but also... kinda nice. _You’re_ nice,” she murmurs, running a hand down his chest. She’s not leaving. Not now, anyway. She’s buzzing with latent anticipation; excitement rebuilding at the prospect of this date now that her concerns about his intentions have been assuaged. 

“Yeah? You think I’m nice?” 

It’s his quiet, almost baffled inflection that does it for her. It’s unbelievable that cocky, smug, playboy, Oliver Queen has a side to him that’s constantly seeking her validation, clamoring for her attention like a lost puppy, but here he is. It makes her feel really good. Confident. 

Like deciding to be here, on this date with him, isn’t a mistake she’ll regret tomorrow. 

Before she second guesses herself, she throws caution to the wind and does the one thing she’s wanted to do since he greeted her at his door earlier this evening. 

His lips are soft when she makes contact with them. A little cold, but soft and pliant against hers. She presses in harder, not exactly demanding, but insistent enough so there’s no question about what she wants. She’s on the tips of her toes, feet arched to reach his ridiculous height, fingers curled into his shirt. Right there, in the hallway in front of his laundry room, she finally kisses him. 

Oliver moans; a half-startled noise that catches in his throat as his back bumps against the wall. 

And then, spurred on by her persistence, his hands bracket around her waist, fingers starting to draw soothing shapes over her dress. One of his legs slips between hers, providing much needed support as Felicity stretches up for more of him. His lips part over a breathy murmur and she feels his tongue taking a quick trip over her bottom lip, stealing a quick taste of her for himself. 

It’s _erotic._

Her palms glide up his shirt, slide around his collar and finally rests along the back of his neck, pulling him down to a more reasonable height to relieve the tension in her calves. Enveloped entirely in him - in his embrace - it strikes her that for the first time in a long time, everything is _quiet._

Her brain, which runs a mile a minute on a _bad_ day, slows right down. A strange sense of calm filters out the cacophony of thoughts that are usually flitting around her head. His lips move over hers languidly, the slight brush of his day-old scruff prickling her skin in the most tantalising way. She’ll have beard burn for days after this, but she doesn’t care. Not when he’s soothing said burn with his lips and his tongue and - 

Every single one of her senses hones in on him, and him alone; the way his chest is expanding against hers, the slight tremor of anticipation that vibrates between them, the way his teeth snag against her lips as they continue learning the way the other tastes. 

She’s consumed by him and she likes it. She’s languishing in this new found Oliver brand of quiet, and she wants more. So much more. 

His nose skims the jut of her cheekbones, nudging her face away from his for a split second. His fingers tighten over the edge of her hip bones, tethering himself to her like if he doesn’t, he’ll be lost to the wind. She gets it though, because she feels the same; she’s floating in uncharted territory and it’s both exciting and terrifying at the same time. 

“Dinner?” The question comes out low and husky, a little strained because they both know dinner is the absolute last thing on their minds. His eyes flutter shut as he sighs. “Should be ready,” he mumbles, even as his hips collide clumsily against hers. Her fingers graze the nape of his neck, holding on so she doesn’t fall backwards. 

She whines. “But-” 

Okay, the way the word comes out of her mouth as a strangled gasp, all desperate and needy, is embarrassing. Honestly, she’d rather just make out with him for the next five hours or so. Is that so bad? 

Oliver clears his throat. His hand comes up to brush a stray lock of hair out of her face. He peers at her curiously, a slight heat lingering in his gaze. He rumbles, “But what? Aren’t you hungry?” 

Felicity drags her eyes upwards. Mmm. She’s hungry, alright. But not for food. 

A thrill of mischievousness surges through her. She leans forward, taps his nose with hers and pulls his bottom lip between her teeth. She sucks on the soft flesh, savoring the heady Oliver-ness before forcing herself to part from him. 

She slides her hands down, palms tripping over the creases in his shirt on their journey down his back, before her fingers find a home in his belt loops. A gentle tug finds him deliciously pressed up against her once more, and she winks before throwing his own words back at him. 

“Didn’t you say that most good things are worth the wait? I think dinner can wait.”

* * *

“God, your mouth!”  
  


Felicity now understands the parade of women who had come and gone from his penthouse. _Understands,_ understands. Because - 

“Why are you talking about other women right now?” 

His voice is muffled - of course, because he’s made a home for himself between her legs, nestled under the covers; a squirming, delectable specimen of man who’s intent on driving her absolutely crazy with his mouth before the night is over. 

“Just thinking about -” She gets cut off, gasping as Oliver sucks, _hard,_ and her vision whites out amidst a toe-curling crackle of pleasure. 

“If you’re still thinking, then I’m not doing this right,” he teases, and then he rolls his tongue and does that thing with his fingers, nudging her legs apart with his broad shoulders, and her brain shorts out. Completely. 

Her back bows right off the bed, her fingers twisting his sheets as her entire body spasms. She thinks she might have accidentally kneed him in the face, but he isn’t complaining so she won’t. Wave after wave of pure, carnal, pleasure crashes over her, and she lets herself ride it out until she’s a boneless pool of bliss on his bed. 

She doesn’t know how long she lies there, luxuriating in the aftermath of round... whatever, but eventually her senses return, one by one. Her skin starts to cool down under the gentle breeze of his air-conditioning. Her vision clears and adapts to the dim light of his bedside lamp. 

“You okay?” 

She turns onto her side to face him, and even that’s an effort. Wow. Oliver’s face greets her, shadows flickering over his features as he smiles gently at her. His hair is all messed up and ruffled, his cheeks are red, lips stained by her lipstick, and she can just about spot the remnants of _her_ along the edges of his lips. 

Yeah, that’s hot. 

“I’m okay,” she assures him hoarsely. “More than okay. I’m so good right now.” 

Oliver drapes an arm over her midsection, pulling her into him. His other hand cards through her hair, smoothing out the tangled knots as a result of all her uncontrollable writhing in bed. He’s warm and solid and so big, that Felicity just wants to curl up against him and fall asleep forever.

“Lights off?” Oliver murmurs before brushing a kiss over her forehead.

“Mm, ‘kay.”

He spreads his hand over her waist, squeezing it gently and then he’s moving, shifting his entire body and slipping his legs between and over hers so that they’re well and truly entwined together. He stretches over her and she hears a distinct click before they’re surrounded by darkness. She ends up half on top of him, cuddled into his side, cocooned between him and his heavy blanket. 

They hadn’t discussed her staying the night, but it looks like it’s pretty much a done deal. Oliver doesn’t seem to be letting her go any time soon, and truth be told, Felicity’s not particularly keen on making the trip back downstairs either. 

It dawns on her that she’s never done this before. 

Have sex on the second date, that is. 

Sure, said sex was mind-blowing and jaw-dropping and possibly the best sex she’s ever had in her life, but shouldn’t she be freaking the hell out right now?

A few months ago, this would have been unfathomable. It took her last boyfriend a total of ten dates before she even considered spending the night with him. Falling headfirst into bed with the infamous Starling City bad boy would have been the most outrageous story anyone could have told her, and yet here she is, snug and relaxed, about to be lulled to sleep to the sound of Oliver’s steady heartbeat.

Hm. Maybe there _is_ something to be said about the universe and fate and destiny after all. 

“You’re amazing, you know?” 

Oliver sounds as half-asleep as she is, and she does a little happy dance on the inside that she’s able to wear him out. This last round had been all about her, but that’s only because Oliver had completely spent himself prior to that; the achy, satisfied, soreness between her legs serving as a stark reminder of how hard and fast they’d gone earlier in the night. 

“So’re you,” Felicity replies lazily. Is he fishing for compliments? Because she doesn’t have the energy to stroke his ego right now. God, she doesn't even have the energy to clean herself up even though she knows she should. 

“We didn’t get to dinner.” Felicity pops an eye open and squints at him blearily. “Worth it though.” 

Oliver chuckles and agrees. _“So_ worth it.” 

They descend into a comfortable silence. His heartbeat echoes in her ear, chest thudding rhythmically against her cheek. 

“Felicity...” 

She feels the rumble in his chest as he says her name quietly. Reverently. She moves, resting her chin along the top of his pectorals to look at him. Her glasses are... somewhere, so he’s just a blurry blob of shadows, but she makes out the whites of his teeth so at least she knows he’s smiling at her and not suddenly regretting what they've just done. 

“I um... tonight wasn’t - I... I want you to know that I really thought tonight was just going to be dinner.” 

Felicity presses her lips together before tipping her head down and kissing his chest. “You mean you _didn’t_ intend on getting me naked and having your wicked way with me?” 

“No, I swear.” 

“Regrets?” she asks tentatively. 

“No, no, not at all.” Oliver is quick to put that to rest. “God, no. This was - is - great. I want to keep doing this with you. Not just the sex, of course. But dinner, and... if you... want. Ah, I’m not saying this right...”

If she had the energy left in her to laugh, she would. But she can’t. She’s exhausted in a bone-deep kind of way, so happy and content and satisfied, that she can’t even bring herself to tease him about his lack of coherence. 

“What I’m saying is -” Oliver starts again, huffing at himself, his hands tightening over her body. “- I’ve never felt like this about anyone before. You’ve... turned my whole world upside down, Felicity, and I want you to keep turning it upside down. If you’ll have me. I know this is fast. So fast. We barely know each other, and I get it if you want to take a step back, but -”

“Are you asking me to be your girlfriend, Oliver?” 

He grunts at her interruption. His hand finds its way up her back before resting between her shoulder blades. Beneath her, his body twitches. His chest expands as he sucks in a deep breath. 

“I... Yes, I am. Will you? Be my girlfriend?” 

Felicity musters up what little strength she has left to crawl up his body so she can kiss him properly on his lips. She wrinkles her nose when she tastes a little of herself on his skin, but plants another one on him anyway. 

“Why does it sound like this is the hardest thing you’ve ever had to ask someone?” she wonders out loud, fingers tracing the intricate tattoo over his left chest. 

“Because in a way, it is,” he answers. He catches her fingers in his hand, halting her movements. “You’re different. I don’t want to screw this up with you.You came to me at a time when I was looking for clarity and direction and it feels... important, you know?” 

“Magical?” Felicity supplies. Cause tonight _was_ magical - for her anyway, despite them not even making it to dinner. The number of times he brought her to orgasm tonight... hgnh. 

“Yeah, magical,” he agrees. He presses his lips together before whispering, “Destined.” 

He pulls her down for another kiss, dragging his teeth over her lips lazily, nuzzling against her nose. They pull apart after a moment, before Oliver prods impatiently, “So... whaddya say?” 

Felicity sighs contentedly as she lies back down over his chest. She lets out an exaggerated yawn, torturing him for a little longer before finally answering. “Yes, I’ll be your girlfriend, you dork.” 

“Oh, thank _God.”_

His body sags with relief under her, as much as his ridiculously muscled body can sag anyway. In an obvious show of happiness, he peppers her forehead with quick, chaste kisses before rolling them both onto their sides so he’s spooning her, surrounding her with his bulk. His nose brushes along her collarbone, inhaling deeply before he settles in behind her. 

“You know what I just realised?” he mumbles, just as Felicity’s about to succumb to the call of sweet, sweet, slumber. 

Felicity makes a noncommittal sound in her throat, wondering why he won’t just let them go to sleep, then mutters a quiet, “What?” 

“I’ve never had a unicorn girlfriend before.” 

The sharp, agonised, yelp that comes from his mouth as a result of her kicking his shin is the last thing she hears before she actually drifts off to sleep, with a smile on her face, and her heart feeling lighter than it’s ever felt in a really, really long time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end! 
> 
> Thanks for all the love, kudos and comments. I love you all so much! Writing is an escape for me, and more about getting the words out of my head, so to know that there are people out here who appreciate my words is so, so nice. Thank you for reading, and I hope you've enjoyed :) 
> 
> Big thanks to Nikki and Pall who tirelessly hounded me to finish this *one-shot* and idk, kept me accountable and not distracted by various video games.

**Author's Note:**

> It's crazy that racism is still a thing that needs to be constantly debated on but here we are. Please support the Black Lives Matter movement, start here: https://blacklivesmatter.com/


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